We're All Stories in the End
by StormWolf10
Summary: AU. Inspired by a post on tumblr. Timothy E. Lord (the Doctor) is a very sick little boy who is in a coma in the hospital. All of his adventures take place in his mind, and his companions are the other children on the ward. Starts AU 9th Doctor, becomes AU 10th Doctor
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Based on a Tumblr post that read "AU in which the Doctor is a very sick little boy lying in a hospital bed in a coma and his universe is just a dream. Each of his companions represents the kids in the beds next to him and when they die or leave the ward, they die or leave in his head. Regenerations represent times he nearly woke up or nearly died and the TARDIS represents his life support machine." I'm starting with the 9****th**** Doctor as I'm not very good at writing previous companions…Anywho, this may or may not be continued, I'm not sure :)**

_The Doctor staggered back into the TARDIS, smiling slightly at its familiar hum, soothing him as the regeneration energy finally died down. His smile, however, didn't last long, and he was soon hurrying for the medical bay. Cuts and bruises littered his body, and it hurt to breathe thanks to broken ribs. He soon set about cleaning himself up, bandaging his cuts the best he could. There was no one there to look after him. They were all gone. He was the last of the Time Lords now, they'd all died. He'd had to step over their broken, battered bodies on his way back to the TARDIS. He sighed, sitting down heavily on the medical gurney, running a hand through his close-cropped hair. He had to get out of these clothes, he decided. They stank of smoke, singed where the Daleks had fired at him. Standing up, he made his way to the wardrobe room, eyes raking over the racks of clothes. He finally settled on a simple pair of black jeans, black doc martens, green jumper and black leather jacket. He quickly dressed in the clothes and crossed to the mirror, looking himself over. He sighed upon seeing his reflection. He'd known he'd regenerated, of course, but he never liked having to learn a new body again. And the teeth! It drove him mad! Turning quickly on his heels, he headed into the depth of the TARDIS._

**~StormWolf10~**

Nurse Carlisle sighed with relief, stepping away from the bed. The life support machine had resumed its steady humming, and the boy's eyes were moving beneath their pale lids.

"He's stable," Doctor Lewis announced calmly, also backing away from the bed.

Several of the nurses who'd been helping stabilise the little boy were beginning to drift off, heading out into the main sector of the Childrens' ward to check on children in the other rooms. Only Nurse Carlisle and two other nurses remained.

"I need one of you to stay with him for a while," Doctor Lewis continued "just to make sure he is ok. Try talking to him, reading to him, whatever. Just…keep an eye on him."

"I'll do it," Nurse Carlisle announced quickly.

Doctor Lewis gave a swift nod and turned to head out of the room, the other nurse following. Nurse Carlisle quickly took a seat beside the bed. The little boy was pale and skinny, his eyes half-hidden beneath messy ginger hair. The cuts and bruises that marred his skin were finally beginning to fade, and Nurse Carlisle sighed, wondering just what they were going to tell the little boy when he finally came out of the coma. The boy was barely nine years old and he was already an orphan, both his parents dying in a car crash two years previously. He'd been in and out of care ever since. Then, remembering what Doctor Lewis had instructed her to do, Nurse Carlisle began talking to the little boy.

"Hello, Timothy," she told the boy softly "I'm your nurse, Nurse Carlisle, remember?"

It wasn't, of course, the first time she'd spoken to the little boy, as he'd been there for eight weeks.

"You might be wondering what all that racket was just now," she continued gently "but it's alright now. Something happened, and your heart stopped beating. Doctor Lewis fixed you up, though, and you're alright now."

**~StormWolf10~ **

_The Doctor was all alone again. They all left him; Victoria, Jamie, Sarah Jane, Tegan, Peri, Grace. Some had died, some had decided to leave, but the result was always the same; the Doctor was alone. Sighing to himself, he crawled out from beneath the TARDIS console, resting a work-roughened hand on the coral._

"_Still got you though, haven't I, old girl?" he murmured gently "You'll never leave me. We're stuck together, you and I."_

_The TARDIS seemed to hum in agreement, causing a small smile to grace the Doctor's thin lips._

**~StormWolf10~**

The boy must be so bored in here on his own, Nurse Carlisle moved. Although he was in a communal room, Timothy was the only child in there, as the previous child who'd been in there- a girl called Grace Holloway- had only been in for a short operation, and had been in for no more than three days. Nurse Carlisle looked up as the door of the room opened and Doctor Lewis came in, followed by a blonde woman and a little girl with shoulder-length blonde hair.

"But Mummy! I don't wanna have the operation!" the little girl protested, brown eyes wide with fear.

"Rose, it will make you feel better, sweetheart," her mother replied, crouching in front of the little girl "you'll be able to run around and play with Keisha and Shareen, and go to the park."

The little girl- Rose- pouted, but allowed her Mum to steer her over to the bed beside Timothy's.

"Why's he asleep?" Rose asked upon seeing Timothy "It's morning!"

"Rose!" her Mum scolded quickly as she helped Rose onto the bed.

"It's alright, Mrs Tyler." Doctor Lewis chipped in, smiling gently as he sat on the bed to talk to Rose "That little boy's rather poorly. He has something called bacterial meningitis, so he's in something called a coma, which means he sleeps all the time,"

Rose looked at Doctor Lewis sceptically.

"But wouldn't he get bored sleeping all the time?" she asked, brow furrowing in confusion.

"Not at all!" Doctor Lewis replied with a grin "He's probably having lots of exciting dreams."

Rose still looked uncertain, but reluctantly accepted Doctor Lewis' explanation.

"Now," Doctor Lewis continued "I need to take your Mum outside with me so she can fill in some boring paperwork for me. Think you'll be alright here? Nurse Carlisle there will be happy to help you if you need anything."

Nurse Carlisle waved at Rose, who waved back. Rose then nodded at Doctor Lewis, who smiled, and led her Mum back out of the room. As soon as they were gone, Rose slid off the bed, and crossed to Timothy's bedside.

"Will he wake up soon?" she asked Nurse Carlisle uncertainly.

Nurse Carlisle paused for a few moments before answering the little girl.

"We're not sure," Nurse Carlisle admitted "Timothy's got a very serious illness."

Rose looked back over at the little boy in the bed.

"Can he hear me?" she asked the Nurse.

Nurse Carlisle smiled.

"Most likely, yes. He won't respond physically to your voice, but he can probably hear it." The Nurse replied.

"What's his name?" Rose asked quickly, wide-eyed.

"Timothy," Nurse Carlisle answered, brow furrowing slightly "but you already know that."

"I mean his _whole_ name! Like mine's Rose Marion Tyler," Rose replied, rolling her eyes and giggling slightly.

"Nurse Carlisle froze, unsure whether to tell the girl. However, she soon assessed that, had the boy been awake, he'd have probably told her anyway.

"His full name's Timothy Elliot Lord."

Rose watched the Nurse carefully as she walked over to Timothy's head. Her eyes still on Nurse Carlisle, Rose bent down and quietly spoke into the boy's ear.

"Hello, Timothy Lord. I'm Rose Tyler."

Upon seeing Nurse Carlisle nod in encouragement, Rose tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and proceeded to tell Timothy everything about her.

**~StormWolf10~**

_As the Doctor crept through the dark basement, he kept an eye out for any signs of movement. His newly-redesigned sonic screwdriver in one hand, he had a firm grip around a carefully created bomb in his other. As long as he could get down to the basement without being intercepted by any Autons, his plan would work. The employees had surely all headed home by now, as the shop had closed for the night. However, as the Doctor turned the corner, he saw a body sprawled on the floor. His superior Time Lord physiology allowed him to see that the body was that of a middle-aged man. He didn't even need to check his pulse to know that the man was dead. Eying the body stonily, the Doctor made his way past it and continued down to the basement. He was almost there when he heard a voice. Damn! Why couldn't these stupid apes ever stay out of harm's way? Growling slightly, the Doctor picked up his pace. Reaching the basement, he saw that it was a teenager. Long blonde hair, baggy jeans and a hoodie. She'd managed to back herself into a wall, the Autons surrounding her. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, the Doctor hurriedly slipped his sonic screwdriver in his pocket, running over to her. The girl's eyes were now closed, but she opened them to look up at him in shock when the Doctor took hold of her hand. Grinning slightly manically at the girl, the Doctor said just one word._

"_Run!"_


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Forgot to say, I own nothing. All recognised characters and dialogue taken from BBC's Doctor Who.**

Jackie watched in concern as Rose sat at Timothy's bedside, holding the boy's hand in hers.

"Rose, sweetheart, you need to get ready for your operation now." Jackie told her daughter again.

Rose didn't respond, although Jackie saw Rose's grip on Timothy's hand tighten slightly.

"'m not going!" Rose replied stubbornly, her back to her mother.

Jackie sighed, and went to walk over to her daughter, but Doctor Lewis gently stopped her. He instead crossed to the little girl, crouching beside her.

"Come on, Rose," he said gently "you know this operation will help your heart."

"I don't care." Rose answered, pouting.

"Rose, you have to have the operation," Doctor Lewis continued.

"No I don't!" Rose retorted, beginning to cry "I'll go down fighting! You can't make me go!"

"I know you're scared, Rose, but I promise it won't be that scary. Your Mum can come down with you too, you won't be alone." Doctor Lewis told the little girl softly, beginning to prise her hand from Timothy's.

**~StormWolf10~**

"_We'll go down fighting, yeah?" Rose asked, her voice shaking._

"_Yeah," the Doctor agreed, managing a weak smile._

"_Together?" Rose questioned, eyes bright with unshed tears._

"_Yeah," the Doctor repeated._

_He reached for her hand, squeezing it in his own larger hand._

"_I'm so glad I met you." The Doctor admitted quietly._

"_Me too." Rose replied, smiling weakly._

**~StormWolf10~**

Rose was prepped for theatre, clutching her Mother's hand tight in her own. She was soon taken down to theatre, and she passed Nurse Carlisle on the way, who was just going in to check on Timothy. The boy still showed no signs of waking, but his vitals were good and his heartbeat was strong. Unable to take the silence of the room, Nurse Carlisle wheeled a TV over to near the little boy's bed, selecting a DVD of cartoons and inserting it into the DVD player. Soon, the DVD was playing and, although Timothy didn't respond, Nurse Carlisle hoped that somewhere in his mind, he could hear and enjoy them.

**~StormWolf10~**

"_Rose, where are you?" the Doctor demanded desperately, clutching the mobile to his ear "Rose, did you make it?"_

_Rose's voice came over the speaker, breathless and strained._

"_Sorry, I was a bit slow."_

_He could almost hear the slight smile in his voice, and the Doctor wanted to shout. She was stuck down there, with the Dalek. Then, Rose was speaking again._

"_See you then, Doctor. It wasn't your fault. Remember that, ok? It wasn't your fault."_

_The Doctor closed his eyes at the sound of her voice. How could she say that? Of course it was his fault! It was all his fault! _

"_And do you know what?" Rose continued "I wouldn't have missed it for the world."_

**~StormWolf10~**

When Rose returned from the operation, she was sore and drowsy. She'd just had open heart surgery, and despite being out for several hours, all she wanted to do was sleep. However, her interest piqued upon seeing another little boy in a bed when she returned. He was in the bed opposite Timothy's, and was playing on a PSP. He looked up and grinned when he saw Rose.

"Hello," he announced "my name's Adam. What's yours?"

"Adam!" his mother scolded, frowning at the boy "Leave her be, she's just had an operation!"

The woman then turned her attention to Rose and her Mum.

"Sorry about my son. I swear he's eight going on eighteen."

"Don't worry about it. I'm Jackie Tyler, and this is my daughter Rose," Jackie replied with a smile.

By now, Adam had gone back to his PSP, and Rose was half-asleep again, but their respective Mothers were too busy talking to notice.

"Rose has pulmonary stenosis," Jackie explained "she's just had open heart surgery to try and help it."

"My Adam came in complaining of stomach pains," Adam's Mum confided, before leaning closer to Jackie "although now I'm worried that he was faking it to get a day off school."

**~StormWolf10~**

"_Adam was saying that all his life he wanted to see the stars." Rose told the Doctor carefully, nodding towards the boy. _

" _Tell him to go and stand outside, then." The Doctor replied calmly._

"_He's all on his own, Doctor, and he did help." Rose continued, wide-eyed and pleading slightly._

"_He left you down there." The Doctor pointed out. _

"_So did you." Rose countered quickly._

"_What're you talking about? We've got to leave." Adam chipped in worriedly, not wanting to be sealed into Van Statten's underground base._

"_Plus, he's a bit pretty." The Doctor continued, point-blank ignoring Adam._

"_I hadn't noticed." Rose replied, too fast to be genuine._

"_On your own head." The Doctor sighed, unlocking the TARDIS._

_Stupid Apes._

**~StormWolf10~**

Adam hadn't been in the hospital for more than twenty-four hours. He'd been sent home with some medication, and- to his disgust- been deemed 'fit enough to go to school' by Doctor Lewis. For the next couple of days, all Rose and Timothy did was sleep, although Rose did occasionally wake to eat food and go to the toilet. Nearly four days after Adam had left, a new boy arrived with his foster Dad. He was sat in a wheelchair, one leg propped up, and spoke with an American accent. He was older than both Timothy and Rose, and at a guess Rose would say he was about ten or eleven.

"Hi, I'm Jack Harkness,"

He introduced himself with a smirk and a cheeky salute, and Rose wasn't sure whether she wanted to steer clear of him or make friends with him. She settled for something in the middle, and politely answered his questions.

"So, who's the kid in the bed?" he asked suddenly, nodding at Timothy.

"Timothy." Rose replied "He has meningitis."

"Ouch." Jack murmured "Don't suppose he's awake much, then?"

Rose shook her head.

"No. I've been here nearly a week now, and he's not been awake at all." Rose replied.

Jack let out a low whistle.

"He's not much fun, then?" Jack asked.

"What do you mean?" Rose asked, glaring at the older boy.

"Well, you can't have a conversation with him, for one," Jack replied.

"I do." Rose replied quickly "Well, I talk to him. The nurse said he can hear us talking."

"What, even now?" Jack asked, blue eyes widening in disbelief.

Rose nodded.

**~StormWolf10~**

"_Good evening. Hope we're not interrupting. Jack Harkness. I've been hearing all about you on the way over." Jack announced, shaking the Doctor's hand._

"_He knows. I had to tell him about us being Time Agents." Rose announced, giving the Doctor a significant look. _

"_And it's a real pleasure to meet you, Mister Spock." Jack continued, beginning to walk towards the ward._

"_Mister Spock?" the Doctor questioned, rounding on his young companion._

"_What was I supposed to say? You don't have a name. Don't you ever get tired of Doctor? Doctor who?" Rose replied, frowning._

" _Nine centuries in, I'm coping. Where've you been? We're in the middle of a London Blitz. It's not a good time for a stroll." The Doctor snapped. _

"_Who's strolling? I went by barrage balloon. Only way to see an air raid." Rose told him calmly as they began to follow Jack to the ward. _

"_What?!" the Doctor asked, frowning as he spun round to look at Rose._

"_Listen, what's a Chula warship?" Rose asked, frowning._

"_Chula?" the Doctor echoed._

**~StormWolf10~**

"You really watch this?" Rose asked Jack uncertainly.

Jack nodded, eyes still glued to the TV set. Rose was finally up and out of the bed without being connected to various monitors, and that meant she was allowed to sit on the chair beside Timothy's bed again. Jack had joined her, and they were now watching one of his favourite shows.

"Ooh, Star Trek!" Nurse Carlisle noted, glancing at the TV as she came over to check Timothy's vitals.

Jack grinned and nodded, but Rose looked unimpressed. Nurse Carlisle smiled, and left the children on their own again, reminding Jack that he'd need to not wander off as they were waiting on his x-rays. Not long later, Doctor Lewis came in to collect Jack and confirm that he needed an operation to fix his leg, which he'd broke whilst trying to scale an eight foot brick wall.

"Looks like I'll be around for a while then," Jack joked, grinning.

"Indeed," Doctor Lewis replied, smiling "I'm just going to let Mark your foster Dad know, and then we'll prep you for theatre."

Jack nodded, and called 'goodbye' to Rose and Timothy over his shoulder as Doctor Lewis wheeled him out the room

**~StormWolf10~**

"_The nanogenes will clean up the mess and switch themselves off, because I just told them to. Nancy and Jamie will go to Doctor Constantine for help, ditto. All in all, all things considered, fantastic!" the Doctor exclaimed, beaming from ear to ear._

"_Look at you, beaming away like you're Father Christmas!" Rose retorted, beaming back at him._

"_Who says I'm not, red bicycle when you were twelve?" the Doctor replied quickly._

"_What?" Rose asked, smile faltering slightly._

"_And everybody lives, Rose! Everybody lives! I need more days like this." The Doctor continued, ignoring Rose's question. _

"_Doctor." Rose cut in quietly. _

"_Go on, ask me anything. I'm on fire!" the Doctor told her, beaming again._

"_What about Jack? Why'd he say goodbye?" Rose asked quietly._

_The Doctor sighed._

**~StormWolf10~**

By the time Jack returned from theatre, Rose had talked virtually non-stop to Timothy, pausing only for about ten minutes to eat lunch. She'd told him about how her Mum had promised that, when she was twelve, her Mum was going to buy her a brand new bike, one without stabilisers like her current one. And that it had to be bright red, like Shareen's was, only more grown up because she'd be older then. She'd also talked about her Dad, and how she wished she could meet him, and how her Mum would show her photos of him.

"Hey, Rose,"

Rose looked up at the sound of Jack's voice, turning round and grinning at him. He looked a bit tired, and he had a plaster-cast on his leg, obscuring the incision from the operation.

"Jack!" she exclaimed, jumping to her feet and hurrying across the room. She still wasn't a hundred percent, and couldn't move as fast as a normal, healthy eight year old, but she was getting better.

Jack grinned at her as two of the porters helped him back onto his bed.

"You been alright?" Jack asked her as she crossed to his bedside.

Rose nodded eagerly.

"I've been talking to Timothy." She replied.

"Any change?" Jack asked, glancing over at the nine year old.

Even though they hadn't actually spoken to the little boy, and had no idea what he was actually like, they were becoming strangely attached to the boy, viewing him as a friend.

"Not yet. Nurse Carlisle says he's ok though." Rose answered with a slight smile.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: New chapter :) Hope you enjoy it ;)**

Jack was discharged a week later, much to Rose's disappointment. That, of course, left her just with Timothy again, although both her Mum and Doctor Lewis had tried to get her interacting with children from other rooms on the ward. Rose had refused, saying she'd rather stick with Timothy, despite not being able to do much due to her 'friend' being in a coma. Rose filled her time with drawing, reading, watching TV and talking to Timothy. She was beginning to wonder if Timothy could actually hear and understand what she was saying to him, and wondered what he was thinking.

"Is there any way to find out?" Rose asked Nurse Carlisle as she watched her change Timothy's IV.

"Not really, sweetheart," Nurse Carlisle admitted gently "there's no way of telling what he's dreaming about."

Rose's shoulders slumped.

"Oh," she replied quietly "ok."

**~StormWolf10~**

_His body was burning, from the inside out. It hurt like hell, but he'd have to bear the pain. For Rose's sake. He'd rather die than watch Rose die. Gritting his teeth, the Doctor was shocked to see Rose sitting up, looking around the TARDIS in confusion._

"_What happened?" Rose asked, frowning in confusion. _

"_Don't you remember?" the Doctor asked, really hoping she didn't._

"_It's like there was this singing." Rose replied, uncertain. _

"_That's right. I sang a song and the Daleks ran away." The Doctor told her with a slight smile._

_Anything to lighten this grim situation, he thought bitterly. _

"_I was at home. No, I wasn't, I was in the TARDIS, and there was this light. I can't remember anything else …" Rose told him._

"_Rose Tyler. I was going take you to so many places. Barcelona. Not the city Barcelona, the planet Barcelona. You'd love it. Fantastic place. They've got dogs with no noses. Imagine how many times a day you end up telling that joke, and it's still funny!" the Doctor began rambling, grinning at her._

_At least, he hoped he was grinning. It might have been more of a grimace… _

"_Then, why can't we go?" Rose asked in confusion._

_Ah. Good. She doesn't know you're in pain. But how are you going to explain this?_

"_Maybe you will, and maybe I will. But not like this." The Doctor told her quietly. _

"_You're not making sense." Rose told him quickly._

"_I might never make sense again. I might have two heads, or no head. Imagine me with no head. And don't say that's an improvement. But it's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're going to end up with…" the Doctor trailed off, doubling over in pain. _

"_Doctor!" Rose cried out, scrambling to her feet. _

"_Stay away!" the Doctor barked, teeth gritted against the pain._

"_Doctor, tell me what's going on!" Rose demanded desperately._

" _I absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex, and no one's meant to do that. Every cell in my body's dying." The Doctor explained, breathing heavily through the pain._

"_Can't you do something?" Rose asked, beginning to panic._

"_Yeah, I'm doing it now. Time Lords have this little trick, it's sort of a way of cheating death. Except it means I'm going to change, and I'm not going to see you again. Not like this. Not with this daft old face. And before I go…" the Doctor began, only to be cut off by Rose._

"_Don't say that." _

"_Rose, before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And do you know what? So was I." the Doctor told her sincerely, a crooked grin gracing his lips._

_And then he burst into golden light…_

**~StormWolf10~**

"What's happening?" Rose demanded, watching wide-eyed and tearful as Nurses and Doctors swarmed around Timothy's unmoving body.

The heart monitor had gone from its normal comforting hum to an incessant beeping, and Rose found it hard to see how such a small blue machine could make such a racket. Jackie quickly encouraged her daughter back into her own bed, and Doctor Lewis quickly pulled the curtains round Timothy's bed, obscuring Rose's view. They could, however, still hear everything that was going on, could hear as Doctor Lewis ordered nurses around, desperate to save the little boy's life. Eventually, the beeping died down, and returned to the calm humming. The curtains were pulled back, and Rose immediately jumped off the bed, only to be stopped by Jackie.

"It's alright," Doctor Lewis told Jackie, nodding at her to let Rose go to Timothy "he's stable now."

Rose rushed to Timothy's bedside the moment Jackie let go of her, and she grabbed her hand, holding it tight.

**~StormWolf10~**

_The Doctor looked over the racks of clothes, carefully considering what to wear. After he'd regenerated, the clothes he'd previously picked hadn't sat right on his now skinny, lanky frame, and he desperately needed a new outfit. He pondered over a few old-fashioned clothes before finally deciding that Rose would prefer if he stayed modern. Keeping that in mind, he finally selected a brown pinstripe suit. Dressing quickly, he grabbed a pair of slightly battered white converses and several ties. He slid the shoes on and finally selected a tie before taking a look in the mirror. Slightly skinnier, paler this time. Freckles. Brown eyes. And lots and lots of brown hair, that seemed to have a life of its own. The Doctor ran his tongue over his teeth, staring at his reflection before deciding that he'd do. On his way out of the TARDIS, he grabbed a tan overcoat on impulse. Janis Joplin had given him that coat._

**~StormWolf10~**

Rose remained sat at Timothy's bedside for the rest of the day, talking endlessly to him. And then, when she was alone for a few minutes, she bent down and whispered in his ear, telling him- begging him- not to scare her like that again.

"I _am_ recovering from a heart operation, you know," she pointed out to the sleeping boy, a slight smile on her face "so no more shocks, ok?"

When Jackie returned from getting a cup of tea, she encouraged Rose down the corridor to the bathroom to brush her teeth and get ready to go to bed. Rose complied, but she slept uneasily that night, always keeping one ear open to hear if Timothy needed her again.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Yet another chapter! So pleased with all the reviews/favourites/follows this story's gotten already! Although, I'm a little surprised no one's picked up on the little joke of Timothy's name… Also, I had to censor and alter some of the scenes, as Timothy is technically only nine, and wouldn't understand love and flirting to such deep extent.**

That next week, nothing happened with Timothy. He remained in a coma, but his vitals were steady. Much to the amazement of the adults, Rose hadn't become bored with her somewhat one-sided conversations with the boy, and she even read stories to him. When she wasn't reading or watching TV with the sleeping boy, she was drawing, but even then Rose narrated what she was doing to Timothy. Jackie watched as her daughter spent more and more of her waking hours with the unconscious nine year old, hoping it wouldn't end in heartache for her young daughter.

**~StormWolf10~**

_The Doctor stood in the doorway, watching his old companion as she backed out of the room hiding the TARDIS._

"_Hello, Sarah Jane." He announced calmly to her._

_Sarah Jane spun round, gaping in shock._

"_It's you. Oh, Doctor Oh, my God, it's you, isn't it. You've regenerated!" she gasped, looking him over, from his messy hair to battered converses._

"_Yeah." The Doctor replied with a half-smile "Half a dozen times since we last met." _

"_You look incredible." Sarah announced quickly. _

"_So do you." The Doctor told her. _

"_Huh. I got old. What are you doing here?" Sarah Jane asked, dismissing the compliment in embarrassment. _

"_Well, UFO sighting, school gets record results. I couldn't resist. What about you?" the Doctor told her, smirking. _

"_The same. I thought you'd died. I waited for you and you didn't come back, and I thought you must have died!" Sarah Jane explained, close to tears._

"_I lived. Everyone else died." The Doctor told her levelly._

"_What do you mean?" _

_The Doctor swallowed before replying._

"_Everyone died, Sarah." _

"_I can't believe it's you." Sarah Jane murmured._

**~StormWolf10~**

Rose sat on her bed, arms folded and glaring at the older girl in the bed opposite. The girl was probably about twelve or thirteen and, like Rose, had a heart problem. Considering her calmness and familiarity with the ward and the staff, it was obvious that the girl had been to the hospital before.

"Hi," the girl announced, waving at Rose in a hope to stop the young girl glaring at her "I'm Sarah Jane Smith."

Rose didn't reply, and Jackie sighed.

"Pleased to meet you, Sarah Jane," Jackie told the girl, smiling gently "I'm Jackie Tyler, and this is my daughter Rose. Please forgive her; she's not usually this rude."

The last five words were tense, directed at Rose herself, as Jackie glared at her daughter, mentally telling the girl to behave.

"You seem quite familiar here," Jackie continued to Sarah Jane "how many times have you been in?"

"Several times," Sarah Jane replied with a shrug "I was in a few weeks ago for a couple of days, for an operation, and they found I needed a stent put in. So, here I am. My Aunt should be in soon, she's just talking with Doctor Lewis."

Jackie nodded, watching as Sarah Jane spotted Timothy.

"Oh," Sarah Jane sighed "Timothy's still here, then?"

"He was here when you came in?" Jackie asked.

"Yeah," Sarah Jane nodded "he'd been here a week or two before that."

Jackie sighed, glancing back over at the boy just as Rose slid out of bed and went to sit at his bedside again.

**~StormWolf10~**

"_I don't mean to be rude or anything, but who exactly are you?" Rose asked Sarah Jane as they walked down the school corridor._

_Even from behind them, the Doctor could tell that Rose was feeling more than a little put out at Sarah Jane's arrival._

"_Sarah Jane Smith. I used to travel with the Doctor." Sarah Jane announced._

"_Oh. Well, he's never mentioned you."_

_The Doctor closed his eyes at that, hearing the slight smirk in Rose's voice. She evidently thought he'd forgotten about Sarah. _

"_Oh, I must've done. Sarah Jane. Mention her all the time!" the Doctor protested, knowing his argument was weak._

"_Hold on. Sorry. Never." Rose replied, pretending to ponder it for a while. _

"_What, not even once? He didn't mention me even once?" Sarah Jane asked, hurt colouring her voice._

_The Doctor sighed._

**~StormWolf10~**

Sarah Jane was only in the hospital for a few days, but Rose had actually warmed to the older girl. Sarah Jane had even gotten her Aunt to run home and fetch the remote control dog she owned to show Rose. However, Rose wasn't alone for long as, the same day Sarah Jane left, another girl arrived. She was a year or so older than Rose, probably the same age as Timothy. She was dressed in relatively smart clothes, and Rose wrinkled her nose, thinking the girl looked like she'd stepped out of a history textbook.

"Hello," the girl greeted them with somewhat perfect diction and a slight French accent "I am Reinette,"

Jackie gave the girl a tight-lipped smile, not sure how to respond to the young girl who seemed, quite frankly, far too mature for her years. Rose merely blinked at the girl, deciding that she wouldn't be anywhere near as good company as Sarah Jane.

**~StormWolf10~**

"_You are in my memories. You walk among them." Reinette remarked, smiling slightly._

_The Doctor had his fingers resting tenderly on Reinette's temples, his eyes closed although hers were open. _

"_If there's anything you don't want me to see, just imagine a door and close it. I won't look. Oh, actually there's a door just there. You might want to cl-" the Doctor trailed off, slightly stunned by what he was viewing in Reinette's mind "Oh, actually, several." _

"_To walk among the memories of another living soul. Do you ever get used to this?" Reinette asked softly, gazing up at the Doctor. _

"_I don't make a habit of it." The Doctor replied, marginally offended._

"_How can you resist?" Reinette queried, a small smile spreading on her lips._

"_What age are you?" the Doctor asked, ignoring her previous question as her brow furrowed. _

"_So impertinent a question so early in the conversation. How promising." Reinette flirted with a grin._

"_No, not my question, theirs. You're twenty three and for some reason, that means you're not old enough. Sorry, you might find old memories reawakening. Side effect." The Doctor told her, brow still furrowed. _

"_Oh, such a lonely childhood." Reinette murmured quietly, her own eyes fluttering shut as her brow furrowed._

"_It'll pass. Stay with me." The Doctor replied gently. _

"_Oh, Doctor. So lonely. So very, very alone." Reinette continued, her face growing more pained. _

"_What do you mean, alone? You've never been alone in your life." The Doctor told her, frowning. Then he realised something. His eyes flickered open. "When did you start calling me Doctor?"_

_Reinette ignored his question, and continued talking._

"_Such a lonely little boy. Lonely then and lonelier now. How can you bear it?"_

_Her eyes opened, and she stared into the Doctor's wide brown eyes. The Doctor pulled away, breaking the link between them._

"_How did you do that?" he asked, frowning down at her. _

"_A door, once opened, can be stepped through in either direction. Oh, Doctor. My lonely Doctor. Dance with me." Reinette told him with a smile._

"_I can't." the Doctor answered, shaking his head as he took a step back. _

"_Dance with me." Reinette repeated, holding out her hand._

"_This is the night you dance with the King." The Doctor told her seriously. _

"_Then first, I shall make him jealous." Reinette announced with a smirk._

"_I can't." the Doctor stressed again._

"_Doctor. Doctor who? It's more than just a secret, isn't it?" Reinette asked, tone gentle again. _

"_What did you see?" the Doctor asked quietly._

_Reinette only smiled._

**~StormWolf10~**

"I'm just going to go and get myself a cup of tea, alright, love?" Jackie told her daughter, kissing her on the forehead.

Rose nodded, not looking up from Timothy. She was sat at the side of his bed again, his hand in hers. Jackie sighed, and left the room. It was only then that Rose looked up. She stared across the room at Reinette. The older girl was sat on the edge of her bed, watching Rose with interest.

"What is wrong with that boy?" Reinette asked carefully, eyes flickering to the still form of Timothy.

"He has meningitis." Rose replied, still wary of the posh girl.

"And you?" the girl asked questioningly.

"Heart condition." Rose answered "P- Pulmonary Stenosis."

Rose stumbled slightly over the medical words, but she'd heard them often enough in her short life that she knew what they meant. Reinette, however, merely raised an eyebrow.

**~StormWolf10~**

_Rose stepped nervously into the room, tugging at her t-shirt in embarrassment as she saw Reinette's lavish dress._

"_Madame de Pompadour. Please, don't scream or anything." Rose told the slightly older woman as Reinette turned to face her, gaping in shock "We haven't got a lot of time. I've come to warn you that they'll be here in five years." _

"_Five years?" Reinette asked, recovering from the shock quickly._

_She'd grown up being chased by clockwork men and the Doctor, she got over shock fast. _

"_Some time after your thirty-seventh birthday. I er, I can't give you an exact date. It's a bit random. But they're coming. It's going to happen. In a way, for us, it's already happening. I'm sorry, it's hard to explain. The Doctor does this better." Rose explained awkwardly, sighing._

"_Then be exact, and I will be attentive." Reinette replied calmly. _

"_There isn't time." Rose told the woman desperately._

"_There are five years." Reinette reminded her testily. _

"_For you. I haven't got five minutes." Rose retorted, rolling her eyes. _

"_Then also be concise." Reinette answered. _

"_Er, there's, say, a vessel, a ship, a sort of sky ship, and it's full of, well, you. Different bits of your life in different rooms, all jumbled up. I told you it was complicated. Sorry." _

_Reinette blinked._

"_There is a vessel in your world where the days of my life are pressed together like the chapters of a book, so that he may step from one to the other without increase of age while I, weary traveller, must always take the slower path?" Reinette asked, well and truly shocked this time._

_Even Rose's strange clothes hadn't shocked her that quickly._

"_He was right about you." Rose mused._

"_So, in five years these creatures will return. What can be done?" Reinette asked, wanting as much information as possible. _

"_The Doctor says keep them talking. They're kind of programmed to respond to you now. You won't be able to stop them, but you might be able to delay them a bit." Rose explained carefully. _

"_Until?" Reinette asked, trying not to get her hopes up too much. _

"_Until the Doctor can get there." Rose admitted. _

"_He's coming, then?"_

_Rose didn't miss the spark of hope igniting in Reinette's eyes. _

"_He promises." Rose told the woman, nodding. _

"_But he cannot make his promises in person?" Reinette asked sceptically, more than a little upset about how the Doctor had sent his…friend to tell her his plan._

"_He'll be there when you need him. That's the way it's got to be." Rose replied steadily. _

"_It's the way it's always been." Reinette mused quietly, surveying Rose "The monsters and the Doctor. It seems you cannot have one without the other." _

"_Tell me about it. The thing is, you weren't supposed to have either. Those creatures are messing with history. None of this was ever supposed to happen to you." Rose told the woman. _

"_Supposed to happen?" Reinette repeated, anger colouring her tone now "What does that mean? It happened, child, and I would not have it any other way." Her tone then softened as she surveyed Rose "One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel."_

**~StormWolf10~**

It turned out that Reinette, like Rose, had to have open heart surgery. She was taken down to theatre and, several hours later, Rose watched in interest when Reinette's teary-eyed parents came and collected her things. The bed was remade and Reinette never returned to the ward, but Doctor Lewis came in just before dinner to explain to Rose about what had happened to the older girl during surgery. Rose listened carefully, nodding every now and then. She hadn't been close to the girl, but she was still surprised. That night, Rose really didn't sleep very well.

**~StormWolf10~**

_The Doctor wandered down the corridor, a slight frown on his face as he searched for Reinette._

"_Reinette? Oh, hello." The Doctor's eyes widened upon seeing that the room was occupied by the King of France, and not Reinette as he'd expected._

"_You just missed her. She'll be in Paris by six." The King replied, staring out the window._

"_Ah." The Doctor murmured._

"_Good Lord. She was right. She said you never looked a day older. So many years since I saw you last, but not a day of it on your face." The King's eyes widened as he took in the Doctor's appearance._

_Gathering his wits, the King quickly headed over to a bureau, opening a drawer and pulling out a sealed letter._

"_She spoke of you many times. Often wished you'd visit again. You know how women are." The King continued as he handed the letter to the Doctor "There she goes."_

_The Doctor looked out the window to see a horse-drawn hearse making its way down the driveway, the horses stepping in the puddles caused by the pouring rain on the way. A coffin was just visible in the back of the hearse._

"_Leaving Versailles for the last time. Only forty three when she died. Too young. Too young. Illness took her in the end. She always did work too hard. What does she say?" _

_Instead of opening the letter, like the King had hinted, the Doctor slipped the letter into his pocket._

"_Of course. Quite right." The King murmured, watching the Doctor's actions sadly._


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Another chapter :) At the moment, it looks like this story will finish after series 4, because I don't think I can make the whole Rory/Amy thing work in the mind of a nine year old coma patient…** **It's also why Mickey was left out- I couldn't really work the scenes right with him not knowing Rose in real life, and it seemed too convenient that they'd both be in hospital at the same time in the same ward…**

"How come Timothy never has visitors?" Rose asked Doctor Lewis one day.

"I'm afraid that's because he has no family," Doctor Lewis explained carefully "Timothy was orphaned a few years ago."

Rose glanced at the little boy on the bed, and quickly slipped her hand into his.

"It's a good job I'm here, then." Rose commented, glancing over at Jackie, who was watching carefully "He can be in our family, right, Mum?"

Jackie looked at her daughter carefully, before forcing a smile and nodding reassuringly at the eight year old.

"Yeah," Jackie told Rose softly "yeah, of course, sweetheart."

**~StormWolf10~**

_Zach, the Captain of Sanctuary Base Six looked over at Rose, watching her carefully._

"_Rose, there's space for you." He told her calmly._

_What remained of the crew was preparing to board a rocket before the remainder of the Sanctuary Base fell into the black hole. _

"_No, I'm going to wait for the Doctor. Just like he waited for me." Rose replied, voice shaking._

_The Doctor was still down in the heart of the planet, and Zach sighed upon hearing Rose's words. _

"_I'm sorry, but he's dead." Zach told the young woman carefully._

"_You don't know him. 'Cause he's not. I'm telling you, he's not. And even if he was, how could I leave him all on his own, all the way down there? No, I'm going to stay." Rose explained tearfully, voice shaking more and more. _

"_Then I apologise for this." Zach told her sincerely before turning to the other two members of the crew "Danny, Toby? Make her secure." _

_Danny and Toby moved to grab Rose between them, and she immediately began struggling between them, but to no effect._

"_No, no. No! No! No! Let me go! Get off me! I'm not leaving!" Rose yelled frantically, tears streaming down her face, smudging her mascara._

_Zach ignored Rose's protests and pulled out a syringe, quickly injecting her in the thigh. Rose immediately began to lose consciousness._

"_No…" she managed to murmur as her eyes slowly shut. _

"_I have lost too many people. I am not leaving you behind. Let's get her on board." Zach told Toby and Danny, giving them a pointed look._

**~StormWolf10~**

Nurse Carlisle drew the curtains around Timothy's bed, listening to the hum of the life support machine as she did so. Upon turning her gaze to the skinny nine year old in the bed, she sighed, before pulling the covers back and easing the gown off him.

"Now, Timothy, we're going to give you a sponge bath," she explained gently "hopefully it'll freshen you up a bit and make you feel a bit better."

She got no response from the boy, and wasn't expecting to. It had been ten weeks since he'd been admitted, and Timothy still had yet to wake up. As Nurse Carlisle dipped a cloth in the warm water and rung it out, she paused momentarily to smooth his sweat-drenched ginger hair back from his forehead. Nurse Carlisle then began wiping down the boy's limbs, doing it quickly before slipping a clean gown on him. She then pressed a small button near the bed to ring for assistance.

"We've gotta change your sheets now," Nurse Carlisle continued as some more nurses arrived to help "but we'll try and do it as quickly as possible,"

The nurses had to roll the boy onto his side to slip the bed sheet from under him, being careful not to dislodge the wires connecting to the life support machine and oxygen as they did so. Once that was done, they settled the boy back into bed and left him be.

**~StormWolf10~**

_The Doctor glared at the Beast, chained to the walls in front of him. Already, he was beginning to piece together what had happened._

"_You're imprisoned, long time ago. Before the universe, after, sideways, in between, doesn't matter. The prison is perfect. It's absolute, it's eternal. Oh, yes! Open the prison, the gravity field collapses. This planet falls into the black hole! You escape, you die. Brilliant! But that's just the body. The body is trapped, that's all. The devil is an idea. In all those civilisations, just an idea. But an idea is hard to kill. An idea could escape. The mind. The mind of the great Beast. The mind can escape! Oh, but that's it! You didn't give me air, your jailers did. They set this up all those years ago! They need me alive, because if you're escaping, then I've got to stop you. If I destroy your prison, your body is destroyed. Your mind with it!"_

_The Doctor raised a rock to smash one of the two urns on the pillars; something he knew would kill the Beast outright. However, he suddenly faltered, letting the rock fall as he dropped his arms back to his sides._

"_But then you're clever enough to use this whole system against me. If I destroy this planet, I destroy the gravity field. The rocket. The rocket loses protection and falls into the black hole. I have to sacrifice Rose…"_

**~StormWolf10~**

Jackie had taken Rose for a walk down to the little pond in the hospital grounds, deciding that now Rose wasn't hooked up to loads of machines, she might enjoy some fresh air. Rose wasn't too impressed with the fact she'd have to leave Timothy alone, but Nurse Carlisle had promised the little girl that she'd sit with Timothy until she returned from her walk. Upon returning to the ward, Rose hurried straight to Timothy's bedside, looking at Nurse Carlisle expectantly.

"He's been fine, Rose," Nurse Carlisle assured the little girl, smiling gently.

Rose smiled back, and reached for Timothy's hand again.

"Did you have a nice walk?" Nurse Carlisle asked Rose.

Rose shrugged.

"It was ok." She replied.

"Doctor Lewis said that, if she goes for a walk each day in the grounds, Rose might be well enough to go home in another two or three weeks," Jackie told Nurse Carlisle with a smile.

Rose's smile, however, faded upon hearing Jackie's words.

"What about Timothy?" Rose asked, bewildered.

"What do you mean?" Jackie asked, brow furrowed.

"Well, if I leave, he'll be alone again!" Rose protested, tears coming to her eyes.

"Rose, you were always only going to be here a few weeks," Jackie reminded her daughter gently.

"But you said he could be in our family! You promised!" Rose cried, glaring at her mother as tears streamed down her reddening face.

"Rose…" Jackie began sadly.

Rose, however, promptly fled from her seat beside Timothy's bed, running to hers and pulling the duvet up over her head as she sobbed into her pillow.

**~StormWolf10~**

_The Doctor glared at the Beast, filled with rage at the fact he had to risk Rose's life._

"_So, that's the trap. Or the test, or the final judgment, I don't know. But if I kill you, I kill her. Except that implies in this big grand scheme of Gods and Devils that she's just a victim. But I've seen a lot of this universe. I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demi-gods and would-be gods, and out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing, just one thing, I believe in her!" the Doctor yelled, eyes bright and gleaming._


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: As you've probably guessed, I'm only doing odd episodes here :) No characters will be dying soon, but when I finally get to series four, would you a) like me to have Timothy wake up, or b) leave him in a coma? Review and let me know :)**

The next day, Jackie managed to encourage Rose to go for another walk, although the girl steadfastly refused to speak to anyone, even Doctor Lewis and Nurse Carlisle. She sat beside Timothy for the rest of the day, holding his hand and watching cartoons on TV. Rose had been dragging her feet on the walk, but Jackie had chalked that up to the girl's reluctance. Now, however, in the early hours of the evening, Jackie was watching her daughter carefully; Rose looked drowsy, shifting in her seat beside Timothy's bed every now and then, alternating between leaning forward slightly and sitting bolt upright. Jackie's brow furrowed as Rose frowned slightly and rubbed her chest.

"Are you feeling alright, sweetheart?" Jackie asked her daughter in concern, watching her carefully.

"Chest hurts," Rose mumbled, rubbing her chest again.

Jackie frowned, desperately trying to remember all the after-effects Doctor Lewis had said the operation could have. Chest pains hadn't been one of them. Eyes suddenly wide, Jackie leant over and pulled the red 'assistance' button beside Rose's bed.

**~StormWolf10~**

_Rose and the Doctor stood, hand in hand at the end of Dame Kelly Holmes Close, watching the firework display that was coming from the nearby Olympic Stadium._

"_You know what?" Rose asked suddenly, smiling as she continued watching the fireworks "They keep on trying to split us up, but they never ever will." _

"_Never say never ever." The Doctor replied seriously, glancing at her before returning his attention to the firework display. _

"_Nah, we'll always be okay, you and me." Rose replied, before looking up at him "Don't you reckon, Doctor?"_

_The Doctor didn't miss the slight worry marring her otherwise confident tone. He wanted to reassure her, to promise he wouldn't let anything happen to her, but there was something…different. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it was most definitely there._

"_There's something in the air. Something coming." He murmured, brow furrowing as he stared up at the darkening sky. _

"_What?" Rose asked fearfully, watching the Doctor carefully._

_The Doctor felt his companion's grip on his hand increase as she began panicking. _

"_A storm's approaching…" he muttered in reply._

**~StormWolf10~**

Doctor Lewis listened to Rose's heart carefully, trying to ignore Jackie, who was hovering nervously behind him.

"Her heartbeat sounds a little faint," he admitted after a while, straightening up and looking at Nurse Carlisle "her blood pressure's low. Call down to theatre and tell them we need an operating theatre _now_."

Nurse Carlisle nodded and hurried out of the room to the Nurses' station. Doctor Lewis then sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, watching Rose sadly.

"Rose, other than the chest pains, is there anything else you think I should know? Restlessness? Any aches or pains?" he asked the girl gently.

Rose bit her lip, thinking a while before nodding.

"Hurts," she replied quietly, voice cracking slightly "feels better when I sit forward, or sit up straight. Feels uncomfortable otherwise,"

She gestured to her tummy as she spoke, and Doctor Lewis closed his eyes for a moment before slipping his hand under Rose's t-shirt and gently feeling her stomach. Noting that it didn't seem to be distended, he tugged her t-shirt down again, covering her belly.

"Rose, I think you have something called Cardiac tamponade," Doctor Lewis began cautiously "it's where either blood or fluid collects in your Pericardium, the sac around your heart. It probably happened during the operation, and I'm afraid we're going to need to take you back down to theatre to drain the fluid, ok?"

Rose nodded, eyes wide and fearful. At that moment, Nurse Carlisle re-entered the room.

"They said we can get her prepped and head straight down there," she announced to Doctor Lewis, smiling reassuringly at Rose.

Doctor Lewis nodded.

"Can you begin prepping Rose, then?" he asked the Nurse "I need to speak to Mrs Tyler outside."

Nearly as soon as Doctor Lewis and Jackie had left the room, Rose was struggling back out the bed, attempting to get to Timothy.

"Rose, you need to stay in bed," Nurse Carlisle told the girl gently, lifting her easily into her arms.

Rose looked at her drowsily for a moment or two before looking at Timothy.

"Bu' I need to go to Timothy," she mumbled, brow furrowing "'m all he has left."

**~StormWolf10~**

_The Doctor watched as Rose and Jackie argued. He knew Rose would pick to stay with him over Jackie, but he couldn't allow her to cut herself off from her family for him._

"_I've had a life with you for nineteen years, but then I met the Doctor, and all the things I've seen him do for me, for you, for all of us! For the whole stupid planet and every planet out there! He does it alone, Mum." Rose told Jackie tearfully, before taking a few steps backwards, closer to the Doctor as she continued "But not anymore, because now he's got me!" _

_Rose hadn't seen, but the Doctor had pulled the dimension hopper he'd used earlier from his pocket, holding it in his hands. Sadly, knowing he'd never see her again, he carefully slipped it over Rose's head. She looked round, shocked._

"_What're you-" _

_And then she was gone. The Doctor stared glumly at the space his companion had previously occupied._

**~StormWolf10~**

Rose was taken down to theatre quickly, and as soon as the excess fluid had been drained from her Pericardium, she was taken up to the Intensive Care Unit, where she'd have twenty-four hour supervision. When Nurse Carlisle returned to the ward, she couldn't help but sigh as she saw that, once again, Timothy was alone. Hopefully Rose would only be in Intensive Care for a short while, and would return to the main ward for the rest of her recovery, but none of that was certain yet. Nurse Carlisle quickly took up the seat beside Timothy's bed and watched the boy carefully. Her gaze drifted to the boy's hand, and for a moment, Nurse Carlisle wondered if Timothy knew that his hand was empty, that there was no Rose to hold it…


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: New chapter! I've worked out how I'm going to do this now, and it will finish after series four :)**

A week later, Timothy was still alone in the room. He hadn't woken up, but his vitals were still strong, and Nurse Carlisle always made time in her day to sit with the boy for a while. She'd also visited Rose in intensive care to let her know her friend was ok. Of course, Timothy hadn't been completely alone in the ward, as he had been joined by a rather loud teenager named Donna Noble for a few days, who had been admitted after her friend Nerys had stabbed her with a broken piece of glass during a science experiment at school. From what Nurse Carlisle could gather, apparently Nerys had seen Donna talking to a boy that the aforementioned girl was 'in love with'. Nurse Carlisle had scoffed at that; Donna couldn't have been more than fourteen, and if her friend was the same age as her, she couldn't really be 'in love'. The door opened just then, and Doctor Lewis came in with a dark-skinned girl of about twelve, as well as a woman who was evidently her Mother. The girl was led over to the bed beside Timothy's, and Nurse Carlisle was momentarily appalled upon seeing that that was Rose's bed. However, the Nurse quickly schooled her features, reminding herself that Rose was currently in ICU, and that there were plenty of other beds in the room for when she returned.

"Nurse Carlisle," Doctor Lewis announced "this is Martha Jones; she needs an operation on her wrist. She broke it when she fell off a climbing frame."

Nurse Carlisle nodded, smiling at the girl, who beamed back. As Doctor Lewis began discussing the operation with the girl, Nurse Carlisle noted that the girl was listening carefully to all the medical terms the Doctor used. When Doctor Lewis led Mrs Jones- Francine, Nurse Carlisle learned later- outside to sign some paperwork, she took the opportunity to talk to Martha.

"You seemed to listen pretty carefully to what Doctor Lewis said there," Nurse Carlisle told Martha "are you interested in medicine?"

The girl nodded eagerly.

"Oh, yes! I'm going to train to become a Doctor when I'm old enough." Martha replied with a grin.

Nurse Carlisle noticed the girl's eyes kept flickering over to Timothy's lithe form. Martha looked at the Nurse with a quizzical expression, and Nurse Carlisle quickly began explaining about Timothy.

**~StormWolf10~**

_The Doctor was staring straight ahead, bored. He'd begun wishing he hadn't gone undercover as a patient after all, and gotten a job as a porter, or something. At least then he wouldn't have to wait until night time before he could search the Royal Hope Hospital for the cause of the plasma coils. Just then, the curtains surrounding his bed were whipped open and Doctor Stoker was stood there with a group of, what he presumed was medical students._

"_Now then, Mister Smith, a very good morning to you. How are you today?" Doctor Stoker asked._

"_Oh, not so bad. Still a bit, you know, blah." The Doctor replied, shrugging slightly and grimacing. _

"_John Smith, admitted yesterday with severe abdominal pains. Jones, why don't you see what you can find? Amaze me." Stoker announced to the medical students._

"_That wasn't very clever, running around outside, was it?" Jones said as she stepped forward to take his pulse. _

"_Sorry?" the Doctor asked, brow furrowing. _

"_On Chancellor Street this morning? You came up to me and took your tie off." Jones replied as if it were obvious._

_The Doctor frowned in confusion. _

"_Really? What did I do that for?" the Doctor asked, perplexed. _

"_I don't know, you just did." Jones answered with a shrug._

"_Not me. I was here, in bed. Ask the nurses." The Doctor told her. _

"_Well, that's weird, 'cause it looked like you. Have you got a brother?" Jones queried._

"_No, not any more. Just me." The Doctor replied, his tone becoming slightly glum. _

"_As time passes and I grow ever more infirm and weary, Miss Jones." Doctor Stoker chipped in with a sigh._

"_Sorry. Right." Jones replied, pulling out a stethoscope._

_The Doctor watched as she listened to his left heart, and then moved the stethoscope over to the right side of his chest. She frowned and glanced up at him. The Doctor merely winked. _

"_I weep for future generations. Are you having trouble locating the heart, Miss Jones?" Stoker asked in annoyance._

_Jones blinked. _

"_Er, I don't know. Stomach cramps?"_

"_That is a symptom, not a diagnosis. And you rather failed basic techniques by not consulting first with the patient's chart." Stoker replied, rolling his eyes._

_As he reached for the clipboard, he pulled his hand back sharply, electrocuted by the metal clip._

"_That happened to me this morning." Jones told him._

"_I had the same thing on the door handle." A male medical student added._

"_And me, on the lift." A woman chipped in._

"_That's only to be expected. There's a thunderstorm moving in and lightning is a form of static electricity, as was first proven by. Anyone?" Stoker asked, looking at the medical students expectantly. _

"_Benjamin Franklin." The Doctor announced. _

"_Correct." Stoker replied. _

"_My mate, Ben. That was a day and a half. I got rope burns off that kite, and then I got soaked." The Doctor continued. _

"_Quite." Stoker replied warily._

"_And then I got electrocuted." The Doctor added, seemingly to himself. _

"_Moving on. I think perhaps a visit from psychiatric." Stoker continued before leading the medical students away "And next we have…"_

_The Doctor stopped listening to what Stoker was saying, but smirked at Jones as she hurried after the other students._

**~StormWolf10~**

"How come there's no one else in here?" Martha asked Doctor Lewis in interest.

Doctor Lewis blinked, and looked up at the girl.

"Well, there are other children in the ward," he told her, slightly confused "but just not in this room."

Martha nodded slightly.

"So he's on his own, then?" she asked, nodding towards Timothy's prone form.

"Well, there's another little girl who's meant to be in here, but she's in ICU at the moment." Doctor Lewis admitted "We're hoping she'll be back down here soon, though."

Martha swallowed and nodded, not wanting to think about the little girl in ICU; she couldn't begin to consider how ill she must be.

"She's not likely to be back down here before I'm discharged, then?"

Doctor Lewis shook his head.

"No, and if she were, I wouldn't have put you in that bed," he told her with a smirk.

"Why not?" Martha asked, brow furrowing.

"Rose became…somewhat attached to Timothy, and she'd sit by the side of his bed holding his hand. She was in the bed you're in now, and I have a feeling she might get a little upset if she found you in that bed." Doctor Lewis explained carefully, trying not to upset the girl.

"How old is she?" Martha asked, noting that Timothy looked to be about nine.

"She's eight," Doctor Lewis replied.

**~StormWolf10~**

"_Right then, let's get going." The Doctor announced, already bounding round the TARDIS console. _

"_But is there a crew, like a navigator and stuff? Where is everyone?" Martha asked, looking round the control room in confusion. _

"_Just me." The Doctor replied, fiddling with the controls._

"_All on your own?" Martha queried, brow furrowing. _

"_Well, sometimes I have guests. I mean some friends, travelling alongside. I had. There was recently, a friend of mine. Rose, her name was. Rose. And we were together." His voice grew quiet at that, before he blinked and forced himself to smile "Anyway..." _

"_Where is she now?" Martha asked, noting the distinct absence of this 'Rose'. _

_The Doctor swallowed thickly, his gaze fixing on the controls. He couldn't look up, he couldn't look up and see that it was Martha stood there and not Rose._

"_With her family. Happy. She's fine. She's… Not that you're replacing her!" the Doctor announced quickly, lifting his head to fix Martha with a stare. _

"_Never said I was." Martha replied defensively, holding her hands up. _

"_Just one trip to say thanks. You get one trip, then back home." The Doctor told her, watching her carefully "I'd rather be on my own."_


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Yay, more chapters! I had a bit of trouble picking which series three episodes to do, hence the wait.**

"_But what did he mean, the Face of Boe? You're not alone." Martha questioned, frowning in confusion._

"_I don't know." The Doctor admitted, brow furrowing. _

"_You've got me. Is that what he meant?" Martha asked hopefully._

_The Doctor swallowed._

"_I don't think so. Sorry."_

"_Then what?" Martha asked, eyes darkening slightly and brow furrowing further. _

"_Doesn't matter. Back to the Tardis, off we go." The Doctor announced, forcing a smile._

_Martha blinked at him before straightening a nearby chair and sitting down in it, arms folded. Oh, Rassilon._

" _All right, are you staying?" the Doctor asked, feigning ignorance._

"_Till you talk to me properly, yes. He said 'last of your kind'. What does that mean?" Martha asked, looking up at him expectantly._

_The Doctor shifted his weight onto his other foot in annoyance. All he wanted to do was get back to the TARDIS._

_It really doesn't matter." He told her._

"_You don't talk. You never say. Why not?" Martha asked, hurt evident in her tone now._

_In the distance, the Doctor could hear the voices of a thousand people singing. Rejoicing. They were free. _

"_It's the city." Martha realised in awe, lifting her gaze to the skies. _

_The Doctor could just make out the line "The darkness deepens…"_

"_They're singing." Martha concluded, breathless._

"_Lord, with me abide. When other helpers fail" the choir continued._

_The Doctor took a deep breath._

"_I lied to you, because I liked it. I could pretend. Just for a bit, I could imagine they were still alive, underneath a burnt orange sky. I'm not just a Time Lord. I'm the last of the Time Lords. The Face of Boe was wrong. There's no one else." The Doctor told her, sinking down to sit on an upturned crate._

"_What happened?" Martha asked, noting the haunted look in his ancient eyes._

_The choir continued; "Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day." _

"_There was a war." The Doctor explained, struggling to get the words out "A Time War. The last Great Time War. My people fought a race called the Daleks, for the sake of all creation. And they lost."_

_Saying those words aloud only made the point sink in further. It had been years since the Time War now, but every now and then, the Doctor still came to the terrifying, devastating realisation that they were gone. That he would never speak to them again._

"_They lost. Everyone lost. They're all gone now. My family, my friends, even that sky. Oh, you should have seen it, that old planet. The second sun would rise in the south, and the mountains would shine. The leaves on the trees were silver, and when they caught the light every morning, it looked like a forest on fire. When the autumn came, the breeze would blow through the branches like a song."_

_A look of awe and bliss spread across the Doctor's face as he recalled the memories, and Martha couldn't bring herself to interrupt. And so she let him have that one moment. And all around them, the city sang._

"_The darkness deepens. Lord, with me abide."_

**~StormWolf10~**

Martha watched Timothy carefully, a notepad on the little roll-out desk in front of her and a biro in her uninjured hand.

"Martha!" Francine snapped at the girl "Stop staring, it's rude!"

"I'm not staring!" Martha answered, eyes wide "I'm researching!"

Francine blinked, unsure what to say to that.

"I'm sorry?" she asked her daughter.

"I'm researching. Timothy has meningitis. He's been in a coma for several weeks, and is on life support because of the illness." Martha continued.

"Well yes, but I doubt the little boy wants you sitting there staring at him and writing notes about him." Francine told her daughter, walking over and pulling the curtain across, shielding Timothy from Martha's view.

Martha blinked, before looking at her Mum.

"This wouldn't bother you usually," Martha remarked with a slight glare "you're just annoyed that Dad brought Annalise to see me."

Francine looked at her daughter for a few moments before snapping up her handbag and stalking towards the door.

"I'm going to get some air."

**~StormWolf10~**

When Francine did return to the ward, Martha was delighted to see her younger sister Tish with her, as well as her younger brother Leo. Leo, of course, was clutching his football to him, and Martha resisted the urge to roll her eyes- her brother never went anywhere without that football.

"When are you having the operation?" Tish asked her sister as she seated herself on the edge of the bed.

"In the next couple of days," Martha replied.

Leo, meanwhile, had wandered over and was staring at Timothy in the bed.

"Leave him alone, Leo," Martha instructed her younger brother exasperatedly.

**~StormWolf10~**

"_Ah, Mrs Jones. We still haven't finished our chat!" the Doctor announced to the woman, a grin on his face. _

_That grin, however, was soon wiped from his face as Francine slapped him across the cheek. _

"_Keep away from my daughter!" Francine told him hysterically._

_Oh, if looks could kill, the Doctor thought, wincing as Francine glared at him. _

"_Mum, what are you doing?" Martha demanded in shock._

"_All of the mothers, every time." The Doctor muttered, clutching his now-red cheek. _

"_He is dangerous. I've been told things." Francine declared._

"_What are you talking about?" Martha asked, frowning._

"_Look around you. Nothing but death and destruction!" Francine told her daughter hysterically, gesturing around them. _

_The ambulance containing Lazarus pulled away as they watched._

"_This isn't his fault. He saved us, all of us!" Martha protested._

"_And it was Tish who invited everyone to this thing in the first place. I'd say technically, it's her fault." Leo chipped in casually. _

_Tish elbowed her brother in the ribs, but before Leo could reply, there was a loud crash. Frowning, the Doctor hurried in its direction. Noticing Martha was about to follow, Francine grabbed her daughter's arm._

"_Leave him." She begged._

_Martha, however, shook her head, and headed off after the Doctor._

"_Martha?" Tish called after her sister, making to follow her._

"_Not you, too?" Francine asked her second daughter, aghast. _

"_Sorry." Tish replied, shrugging before setting off after Martha._

**~StormWolf10~**

"Martha?" Doctor Lewis asked as he entered the room.

Martha looked up at the Doctor, only to see that he was being followed by a little boy of about nine years old with mid-length brown hair. The boy was dressed in a smart black suit and tie, and was playing with a silver ball about the size of a football.

"This is Harry Saxon," Doctor Lewis continued as he led the boy over to the bed opposite "he'll be staying in this room for a while as we work to sort out the swelling in his brain."

Martha nodded and smiled at the boy, although the boy only smirked back. Well, Martha though, smile faltering, this would be interesting.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Urgh, Harry Saxon is a disgusting character to write…. Also, bumper chapter! Over 3000 words! XD**

"Stop doing that," Martha told the boy in annoyance.

Harry blinked and looked over at the girl, a smirk spreading on his face.

"It's not like he can feel it," Harry replied calmly.

"You don't know that!" Martha protested, glaring at the boy "And besides, he's only in a coma. Nurse Carlisle said he could hear voices, so he can probably feel you poking him!"

Harry shrugged and returned his attention to Timothy, who lay unmoving on the bed.

"You can't tell me what to do," Harry told her quietly "besides, I've known Tim longer than you have."

"No you haven't," Martha answered quickly, brow furrowing "you've only been here a few hours!"

"We went to school together, actually," Harry announced, looking up at Martha again "before Tim's parents died and he was put into a Childrens home. He moved schools then."

"Well…" Martha faltered, unsure what to say to the boy "that still doesn't give you the right to poke him."

"We're cousins," Harry continued, keeping his eyes locked on Martha as he slowly reached out and poked Timothy's cheek.

He smirked again as Martha glared and rushed forward, pulling his arm back from Timothy before situating herself between him and the bed.

"How come he was put in a Childrens home, then?" Martha asked the younger boy, staring down at him in disbelief "Why didn't your parents adopt him?"

"We… Don't speak," the boy replied carefully, although there was a malicious glint in the nine year old's eyes "our parents had a falling out. I rarely saw him outside of school."

Before Martha could muster a reply, a strong American accent cut through the air, as someone entering the room let out a cheery "I'm ba-ack!" Both Martha and Harry looked up to see a boy of about ten or eleven entering the room in a wheelchair, a wide grin on his face. That grin, however, faltered as he took in the occupants of the room. Blinking, he turned to look up at Nurse Carlisle, who was pushing the wheelchair.

"Where's Rose?" he asked, brow furrowing in confusion.

"She's up on ICU, I'm afraid," Nurse Carlisle told the boy gently, wheeling him over to the bed opposite Timothy.

"Is she alright?" he demanded, blue eyes wide with concern.

"She's recovering," Nurse Carlisle replied calmly, before turning to Harry and Martha "I'll leave you three to get acquainted."

The nurse left the room, and Martha and Harry watched the new boy carefully.

"I'm Martha Jones," Martha told the boy eventually, walking over to the bed and holding out her uninjured hand for a handshake.

"Jack Harkness," the boy replied, shaking her hand before looking over at Harry "and you are?"

"Harry Saxon." Harry announced, crossing the room and walking straight past Jack to pick up his silver football thing, tossing it from hand to hand.

"What are you guys in for?" Jack asked them.

"I'm having an operation on my wrist," Martha explained, holding up the wrist in question "I damaged it during PE at school."

Jack smirked.

"I fell off a wall and broke my leg, so I was in a few weeks ago." Jack explained to Martha, smiling crookedly "And today I found out you can't play football with a cast on."

Martha winced and Jack merely shrugged before looking over at Harry.

"And what about you?" Jack asked him.

Harry merely smiled and walked out of the room.

**~StormWolf10~**

"_Doctor." Jack said tensely._

"_Captain." The Doctor countered, equally as tense. _

"_Good to see you." Jack told his old friend, relaxing slightly, although still a bit tense and wary,_

"_And you. Same as ever. Although, have you had work done?" the Doctor asked as he looked his old friend over._

"_You can talk." Jack replied, eyebrow raised._

"_Oh yes, the face. Regeneration. How did you know this was me?" the Doctor asked in confusion. _

"_The police box kind of gives it away." Jack joked, before his voice became hard "I've been following you for a long time. You abandoned me." _

"_Did I? Busy life. Moving on." The Doctor announced, attempting a disarming smile._

"_Just got to ask. The Battle of Canary Wharf. I saw the list of the dead. It said Rose Tyler." Jack told the other man carefully, eyes downcast and expecting the worst._

"_Oh, no! Sorry, she's alive!" the Doctor announced quickly, grinning. _

"_You're kidding?" Jack asked, head shooting up and a wide grin spreading across his face. _

"_Parallel world, safe and sound." The Doctor declared, beaming._

**~StormWolf10~**

"What kind of football did that kid have anyway?" Jack asked after Harry had left the room.

Martha shrugged.

"Some kind of skills ball?" she suggested with a shrug.

"Don't think so," Jack replied, brow furrowing and shaking his head.

The two descended into silence, and Jack's gaze drifted to Timothy before he spoke again.

Any change in Timothy?" he asked Martha.

Martha shook her head.

"Not that I've seen." Martha replied, glancing over at the unconscious boy. Then, against her better judgement, she spoke again, hoping to get more information about Rose from Jack than she'd gotten from Nurse Carlisle "Who's Rose?"

Jack faltered for a few moments before replying.

"Rose was this little kid who was in here when I came in. She had to have open heart surgery," Jack explained carefully "and she'd sit by the side of Timothy's bed every day, holding his hand and talking to him."

"Were they close?" Martha asked.

Jack thought for a few moments before answering.

"They didn't know each other before being in hospital, if that's what you mean." He answered "Rose doesn't even know what Timothy's like, she's never actually had a conversation with him."

Martha blinked.

**~StormWolf10~**

"_Who is he, anyway? And that voice at the end, that wasn't the Professor." Martha pointed out, brow furrowed as she stretched her sore muscles from the Vortex Manipulator._

_It had been a rough ride back from the end of the Universe, and they were all feeling the effects of the Vortex Manipulator, but right now they had bigger things to worry about. Like the Master. _

"_If the Master's a Time Lord, then he must have regenerated." Jack pointed out._

"_What does that mean?" Martha questioned, looking up at the ex-conman. _

"_It means he's changed his face, voice, body, everything. New man." Jack explained gravely._

_As they walked through London, the trio of time travellers failed to notice that a beggar was tapping out a rhythm on a metal tin; four beats, over and over. _

"_Then how are we going to find him?" Martha asked, turning her attention to the Doctor now._

"_I'll know him, the moment I see him. Time Lords always do." The Doctor answered calmly, looking around. _

"_But hold on. If he could be anyone, we missed the election. But it can't be…" Martha trailed off, looking up at a large television screen broadcasting the news across the busy London street._

"_Mister Saxon has returned from the Palace and is greeting the crowd inside Saxon Headquarters." The Newsreader announced, a fixed smile on his face._

_Martha watched in shock as the Master and a woman they hadn't seen before walked down a flight of stairs, hand in hand and smiling for the cameras._

"_I said I knew that voice. When he spoke inside the TARDIS. I've heard that voice hundreds of times. I've seen him. We all have. That was the voice of Harold Saxon." Martha realised, eyes fixed to the screen. _

"_That's him." The Doctor announced gravely, staring at the screen "He's Prime Minister."_

**~StormWolf10~**

Jack looked up as Harry was steered back into the room by Doctor Lewis.

"Now, I don't want to find you down wandering around the Intensive Care Unit again, understand?" Doctor Lewis asked the boy sternly "I don't care how funny you find it jumping out at people and scaring them, but you could have killed someone."

Harry merely glared at the floor, and Doctor Lewis sighed before turning to Jack.

"Jack, we're going to take you down to X-Ray in an hour or so," he told the boy gently before turning to Martha "and you, Miss Jones, will be prepped for theatre within the hour."

Both children nodded and watched as Doctor Lewis left the room. Just as the Doctor had said, they were soon collected by Nurses, Jack taken to X-Ray and Martha taken to theatre. This, of course, left Harry with Timothy. The boy quickly crossed the room and stood by his cousin's bed, reaching out and poking him in the cheek.

"Oi, Tim," Harry told the boy, prodding him.

He got no reply, and Harry glared at the boy, poking him again, harder this time.

"Tim!" he repeated, louder.

Again, there was no response, so he poked the boy hard in the cheek. And then he suddenly found himself being led away, someone tugging on his arm. He looked up to see Nurse Carlisle half-leading, half-dragging him across the room. Harry smirked at her.

**~StormWolf10~**

_The Doctor crossed the small cage his tiny body was imprisoned in, gripping the bars in his small hands. He was entirely at the Master's will, his weak, frail body could be poked and prodded and moved and manipulated any way the Master wanted it to be. And there was no one to stop him. _

"_Tomorrow, they launch. We're opening up a rift in the Braccatolian space. They won't see us coming. It kind of scary." The Master announced, voice faltering slightly on the last sentence._

"_Then stop." The Doctor told him quietly, watching his former friend._

_The Master ignored him. _

"_Once the Empire is established, and there's a new Gallifrey in the heavens, maybe then it stops. The drumming. The never ending drumbeat. Ever since I was a child. I looked into the vortex. That's when it chose me. The drumming, the call to war." The Master crossed to the cage, looking into the Doctor's eyes, a mix of terror and madness swirling in the depths of his own "Can't you hear it?" he whispered, wide-eyed "Listen, it's there now. Right now. Tell me you can hear it, Doctor. Tell me." _

"_It's only you." The Doctor told his friend gently, eyes imploring the man to let him help you. _

"_Good." The Master replied, a sinister smirk spreading across his face._

**~StormWolf10~**

Jack was brought back from X-Ray only half an hour before Martha was back from her short operation. Harry was still glowering in his corner of the room, refusing to speak to either of them, so they left him be playing with his weird silver ball.

"He's got some kind of brain problem," Martha explained to Jack quietly as they watched the other boy "Doctor Lewis said something about a swelling of the brain."

"That explains a lot," Jack remarked, glancing at Harry "how did your operation go."

"Alright, Martha replied "although I'll have to have a cast for a few weeks. You?"

"Luckily I didn't break my leg again. I just broke the cast." Jack answered with a grin.

**~StormWolf10~**

"_At zero, to mark this day, the child Martha Jones, will die. My first blood. Any last words?" the Master asked, looking down on Martha who was kneeling in front of him "No? Such a disappointment, this one. Days of old, Doctor, you had companions who could absorb the time vortex. This one's useless. Bow your head. And so it falls to me, as Master of all, to establish from this day, a new order of Time Lords. From this day forward-" _

_He broke off as Martha began chuckling quietly._

"_What. What's so funny?" the Master demanded, brow furrowing._

"_A gun?" Martha asked, looking up at him as she attempted to stop laughing. _

"_What about it?" the Master asked in confusion._

"_A gun in four parts?" Martha continued._

"_Yes, and I destroyed it." The Master replied._

"_A gun in four parts scattered across the world? I mean, come on, did you really believe that?" Martha asked the man incredulously._

"_What do you mean?" the Master demanded, glaring down at her._

"_As if I would ask her to kill." The Doctor piped up from his cage, voice weak but determined._

"_Oh well, it doesn't matter. I've got her exactly where I want her." The Master answered quickly. _

"_But I knew what Professor Docherty would do. The Resistance knew about her son. I told her about the gun, so she'd get me here at the right time." Martha explained with a grin._

"_Oh, but you're still going to die." The Master told her with a sneer._

"_Don't you want to know what I was doing, travelling the world?" Martha asked him, raising an eyebrow. _

"_Tell me." The Master humoured her._

"_I told a story, that's all. No weapons, just words. I did just what the Doctor said. I went across the continents all on my own. And everywhere I went, I found the people, and I told them my story." Martha answered simply "I told them about the Doctor. And I told them to pass it on, to spread the word so that everyone would know about the Doctor."_

"_Faith and hope? Is that all?" the Master sneered, laughing._

"_No, because I gave them an instruction, just as the Doctor said." Martha continued, getting to her feet "I told them that if everyone thinks of one word, at one specific time…"_

"_Nothing will happen." The Master cut in "Is that your weapon? Prayer?"_

"_Right across the world, in word, just one thought at one moment but with fifteen satellites."_

"_What?" the Master asked, incredulous as it began sinking in._

"_The Archangel Network." Jack breathed. _

"_A telepathic field binding the whole human race together, with all of them, every single person on Earth, thinking the same thing at the same time. And that word is Doctor." Martha announced._

_The countdown reached zero, and the Doctor began glowing with a pale blue light. _

"_Stop it. No, no, no, no, you don't." the Master protested, looking round the room as its occupants began chanting one word._

"_Doctor."_

"_Doctor."_

"_Don't." the Master protested._

_All around the world, people were chanting one word; Doctor._

"_Stop this right now. Stop it!" the Master screamed, backing himself into the wall._

"_Doctor."_

"_Doctor."_

"_Doctor."_

"_Doctor."_

_The Doctor was floating in mid-air now, still bathed in the pale blue light but back to normal now. He began floating towards the Master. _

"_I've had a whole year to tune myself into the psychic network and integrate with its matrices." The Doctor explained, locking eyes with the Master._

"_I order you to stop!" The Master yelled, wide-eyed._

"_The one thing you can't do. Stop them thinking." The Doctor announced "Tell me the human race is degenerate now, when they can do this."_

_Martha ran to her family, hugging them as the Master tried to push himself back further into the wall._

"_No!"_

_The Master fired his laser screwdriver at the Doctor, who merely deflected the beam._

"_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The Doctor told his former friend._

"_Then I'll kill them!" the Master announced hysterically._

_With a wave of his hand, the Doctor caused the screwdriver to fly from the Master's grip, clattering across the floor._

"_You can't do this. You can't do it. It's not fair!" the Master yelled._

"_And you know what happens now." The Doctor continued._

"_No! No! No! No!"_

"_You wouldn't listen."_

"_No!"_

"_Because you know what I'm going to say." The Doctor told him, landing on the floor beside the Master._

"_No." the Master protested feebly, curling into a ball in the corner as the Doctor put his arms around him._

"_I forgive you."_

**~StormWolf10~**

"Doctor! Doctor!"

Martha and Jack had been yelling for a Doctor for what felt like ages now, both crouched beside Harry. Finally, Doctor Lewis came running into the room, paling at the sight he was met with. Harry was fitting on the floor, clearly having a seizure, and Martha was crouched beside the boy, holding her arm awkwardly to avoid damaging the stitches from the operation. Jack too had hauled himself onto the floor, injured leg stretched out in front of him. Quickly, Doctor Lewis hurried over to the boy, already yelling over his shoulder for a crash team. He gently moved the two kids out of the way and was ready to help lift Harry onto the medical gurney when the crash team arrived. Within minutes, they were rushing the boy down to theatre. However, Doctor Lewis returned to the ward only fifteen minutes later, encouraging Martha and Jack to sit down on the bed so he could talk to them.

"There was a complication with Harry's condition during surgery…"

**~StormWolf10~**

_A gunshot echoed through the room, and the Doctor lunged to catch his friend._

"_There you go. I've got you. I've got you." The Doctor told the Master as he carefully lowered him to the ground._

" _Always the women." The Master joked bitterly, glancing over to see Jack taking the gun from his wife. _

"_I didn't see her." The Doctor apologised, tears already welling in his eyes._

"_Dying in your arms. Happy now?" the Master asked coldly._

"_You're not dying. Don't be stupid. It's only a bullet. Just regenerate." The Doctor told him fiercely, tears beginning to run down his face._

"_No." the Master retorted stubbornly._

"_One little bullet. Come on!" the Doctor pleaded desperately._

"_I guess you don't know me so well. I refuse." The Master announced with great difficulty, a smirk spreading across his increasingly-pale face._

"_Regenerate. Just regenerate. Please. Please! Just regenerate. Come on." The Doctor begged now, clinging to his best friend in his arms._

"_And spend the rest of my life imprisoned with you?" the Master asked angrily._

"_You've got to. Come on. It can't end like this. You and me, all the things we've done. Axons. Remember the Axons? And the Daleks. We're the only two left. There's no one else. Regenerate!"_

_The Master simply looked up at the Doctor's tear-streaked face._

"_How about that. I win. Will it stop, Doctor? The drumming. Will it stop?"_

_And then, before the Doctor could form a reply, the Master went limp in his arms._


	10. Chapter 10

"I'm perfectly capable of walking, Mother! I do not need a wheelchair!"

Nurse Carlisle looked up, brow furrowed at the voice. She recognised it, but couldn't quite remember where. And then, it all came back to her as a fourteen year old ginger girl walked stiffly into the room, clutching tightly onto an elderly man.

"If you'd just like to take this bed here," Doctor Lewis announced, pointing to the nearest bed.

It also happened to be the bed that Martha had vacated just a few hours before, having been discharged the same time as Jack Harkness.

"Now, Donna," Donna's mother- Sylvia, if Nurse Carlisle recalled correctly- "stop making so much fuss! I was only trying to help!"

"Hello again, Donna," Nurse Carlisle chipped in, hurrying to help the elderly gentleman ease the teenager into the bed "what's the problem this time?"

Donna huffed and winced as she adjusted her position on the bed.

"It was Nerys again," she explained bitterly "we were doing some stupid Army Assault course thing and she pushed me off the top of a ten foot tall climbing wall. I've done something to my back."

Nurse Carlisle tutted and couldn't help but smile as the elderly man spoke up.

"I really don't know why you're friends with her, sweetheart,"

"It's hard to explain, Gramps," Donna told him dejectedly.

The man sighed, and moved to shake Nurse Carlisle's hand.

"I'm Wilfred Mott, but the way," he announced with a smile.

"Nurse Carlisle," Nurse Carlisle replied as she shook his hand.

"Anyway," Sylvia announced "I'm going to go phone the school and make a formal complaint. And then I'll be phoning Nerys' parents. They need to teach their daughter some manners."

"Mum, just leave it," Donna told her Mum in annoyance.

Sylvia, however, was already halfway out the door, causing Donna to sigh.

"Mum!" She yelled after her "Mum!"

Wilf rolled his eyes and gave Nurse Carlisle an apologetic smile. Yep, Nurse Carlisle mused, Donna Noble was back.

**~StormWolf10~**

_The Doctor and Donna collided into one another on the stairs, both a little breathless from the sudden unexpected run, but both grinning._

"_Oh, my God. I don't believe it! You've even got the same suit" Donna exclaimed, before her face fell "Don't you ever change?"_

"_Yeah, thanks, Donna. Not right now." He told her, grabbing her hand. _

_He peered over the handrail of the stairwell and saw guards only a few floors below them. He looked at Donna again and grinned._

"_Just like old times!"_

**~StormWolf10~**

"Is that the kid you were telling me about?" Wilf asked his granddaughter quietly, nodding at Timothy's still form.

Donna nodded.

"Yeah. Doesn't look like there's been any change in him, either," Donna replied, looking over at the boy.

She winced again as she strained her back too much, and sank back into the pillows, sighing.

"You alright, sweetheart? Do you want some more pillows?" Wilf asked in concern, moving to grab some more pillows.

"No, no," Donna waved him down "I'm fine Gramps. Just carry on with your crossword, yeah?"

Wilf smiled and settled back down again, looking thoughtfully at the crossword in the paper.

**~StormWolf10~**

_The Doctor and Donna were wandering down the alley way the Doctor had parked the TARDIS in when Donna suddenly stopped._

"_That's my car! That is like destiny. And I've been ready for this!" Donna exclaimed, running over and unlocking the boot, which was full of suitcases "I packed ages ago, just in case. Because I thought, hot weather, cold weather, no weather. He goes anywhere. I've gotta be prepared."_

_She began unloading the suitcases into the Doctor's arms. He blinked as she plonked a hatbox on top of the pile._

"_You've got a, a hatbox." The Doctor commented, eyeing it warily._

"_Planet of the Hats, I'm ready!" Donna announced with a grin "I don't need injections, do I? You know, like when you go to Cambodia. Is there any of that? Because my friend Veena went to Bahrain, and she. You're not saying much."_

"_No, it's just. It's a funny old life, in the TARDIS." The Doctor told her, being careful of his words._

"_You don't want me." Donna noted, deflated._

"_I'm not saying that." The Doctor protested quickly._

"_But…you asked me. Would you rather be on your own?" Donna asked quietly._

"_No. Actually, no. But the last time, with Martha, like I said, it, it got complicated. And that was all my fault. I just want a mate."_

"_You just want to mate?" Donna asked, gaping and brow furrowing._

"_I just want a mate!" the Doctor repeated frantically._

"_You're not mating with me, sunshine!" Donna told him, wide-eyed as she used the TARDIS doors to shield herself._

"_A mate. I want a mate." The Doctor stressed._

"_Well, just as well, because I'm not having any of that nonsense. I mean, you're just a long streak of nothing. You know, alien nothing." Donna told him, gesturing up and down at him._

"_There we are, then. Okay." The Doctor told her, taking a deep breath._

"_I can come?" Donna asked, shocked._

"_Yeah. Course you can, yeah. I'd love it." The Doctor replied with a grin._

**~StormWolf10~**

"I'm meant to be going on a school trip to Rome," Donna told Nurse Carlisle glumly, wincing as the nurse helped her move further up the pillows "will I still be able to go?"

Nurse Carlisle watched the girl carefully before replying.

"I can't say anything for certain," she told Donna gently "we need to do an X-Ray on you to see just what the extent of the damage is and whether you've damaged your spine. It's most likely you just have deep bruising, but in the event of you chipping your spine, you may have to have surgery."

Donna sighed and nodded reluctantly as Wilf squeezed her hand.

**~StormWolf10~**

"_Ancient Rome!" the Doctor announced as he stepped out of the TARDIS "Well, not for them, obviously. To all intents and purposes, right now, this is brand new Rome." _

"_Oh, my God. It's, it's so Roman. This is fantastic!" Donna exclaimed as she stepped out after him._

_The Doctor laughed at that, grinning at his new companion._

"_I'm here, in Rome. Donna Noble in Rome. This is just weird. I mean, everyone here's dead." Donna mused, gazing around._

"_Well, don't tell them that." The Doctor told her quietly in a slightly pained voice._

_Donna's eyes suddenly went wide, and she rounded on him._

"_Hold on a minute. That sign over there's in English." _

_She pointed at a nearby hand-painted sign, which was written in English._

"_Are you having me on? Are we in Epcot?" Donna demanded in annoyance._

" _No, no, no, no. That's the Tardis translation circuits. Just makes it look like English. Speech as well. You're talking Latin right now." The Doctor explained hurriedly._

"_Seriously?" Donna asked in disbelief._

_The Doctor hummed, nodding._

"_I just said seriously in Latin!"_

"_Oh, yeah!" the Doctor told her with a grin. _

"_What if I said something in actual Latin, like veni, vidi, vici? My dad said that when he came back from football. If I said veni, vidi, vici to that lot, what would it sound like?" Donna asked, looked expectantly at the Doctor._

"_I'm not sure. You have to think of difficult questions, don't you?" the Doctor told her in mock annoyance._

"_I'm going to try it." Donna announced, heading towards a nearby store.  
_

"_Afternoon, sweetheart. What can I get you, my love?" the stallholder asked._

"_Er, veni, vidi, vici." Donna told him, a smile on her face._

_The stallholder blinked at her._

"_Huh?" he asked, brow furrowing "Sorry? Me no speak Celtic. No can do, missy."_

"_Yeah." Donna nodded sarcastically, walking back to the Doctor. "How's he mean, Celtic?"_

"_Welsh. You sound Welsh." The Doctor told her in amusement "There we are. Learnt something." _

_They began wandering through the market, taking in the sights._

"_Don't our clothes look a bit odd?" Donna asked, glancing down at her jeans._

"_Nah. Ancient Rome, anything goes. It's like Soho, but bigger." The Doctor dismissed Donna's concern with a grin. _

"_You've been here before then?" Donna asked him._

"_Mmm. Ages ago. Before you ask, that fire had nothing to do with me. Well, a little bit. But I haven't got the chance to look around properly. Coliseum, Pantheon, Circus Maximus. You'd expect them to be looming by now. Where is everything? Try this way." The Doctor announced, suddenly cutting down another street. _

_Donna hurried to catch up, and as they entered a plaza, Donna faltered, taking in the scenery._

"_Not an expert, but there's seven hills of Rome, aren't there? How come they've only got one?" Donna asked in confusion._

_Before the Doctor could reply, the ground began shaking, and one of the nearby stallholders announced "Here we go again". The vendors began gripping onto the stalls as tremors shook the earth._

"_Wait a minute." Donna realised "One mountain, with smoke. Which makes this…" _

"_Pompeii." The Doctor cut in gravely "We're in Pompeii. And it's volcano day."_


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: I have an idea of how to end this, so there's only a few chapters left. However, I may do an epilogue or something…All will be revealed in the last chapter :)**

"What are you reading?" Nurse Carlisle asked in interest, glancing over at Donna as she finished replacing Timothy's IV.

"Agatha Christie," Donna replied with a sigh "Death in the Clouds. It's for English."

"Are you enjoying it?" Nurse Carlisle asked the girl, crossing to her bed.

Donna shrugged, wrinkling her nose up.

"It's alright. But it's a bit confusing. And I don't understand why there's a huge wasp on the front cover." Donna admitted, smiling weakly.

Nurse Carlisle chuckled at that, nodding slightly in agreement.

"Agatha Christie books are very good, but can be a bit confusing if you don't give them your full attention." The nurse agreed with a smile, heading for the door.

**~StormWolf10~**

"_Doctor!" Donna screamed, her back against the wooden door._

_The door jolted as the massive wasp crashed into the door from the other side, its sting penetrating the door just as the Doctor and Agatha came hurtling up the stairs._

"_It's a giant wasp!" Donna told them, wide-eyed._

_The Doctor blinked before frowning at his companion._

"_What do you mean, a giant wasp?" the Doctor asked her, watching Donna carefully._

"_I mean, a wasp that's giant." Donna replied, punctuating each word in annoyance._

"_It's only a silly little insect." Agatha told her in disbelief, shaking her head at the other woman. _

"_When I say giant, I don't mean big, I mean flipping enormous! Look at its sting!" Donna told them, furiously gesturing at the sting now penetrating the door._

"_Let me see." The Doctor replied, quickly nudging Donna out of the way and stepping into the long-abandoned bedroom. "It's gone." He noted, gazing around the room "Buzzed off."_

"_But that's fascinating!" Agatha murmured, crouching to examine the sting._

"_Don't touch it. Don't touch it. Let me." the Doctor told Agatha, nudging her out the way to scoop some gunk from the sting with a pencil, depositing it into a test tube. "Giant wasp. Well, tons of amorphous insectivorous lifeforms, but none in this galactic vector."_

"_I think I understood some of those words. Enough to know that you're completely potty." Agatha told him, watching the Time Lord warily._

"_Lost its sting, though. That makes it defenceless." Donna noted, crouching beside the Doctor._

"_Oh, a creature this size? Got to be able to grow a new one." The Doctor replied dismissively._

"_Can we return to sanity? There are no such things as giant wasps." Agatha told them, annoyance colouring her tone, refusing to believe them despite the evidence that lay in front of her._

"_Exactly. So. The question is, what's it doing here?" the Doctor murmured, straightening up._

**~StormWolf10~**

"I don't understand it, Gramps!" Donna moaned, sighing as she carefully readjusted herself in the bed, careful not to strain her damaged back.

Wilf lowered his paper to look at his granddaughter.

"I swear they've accused everyone of being the murderer!" Donna continued, wincing slightly.

"I'm sure it's not that difficult, sweetheart," Wilf told his granddaughter, taking the book from her and moving his chair closer to the bed.

Donna glared at him, and didn't reply, causing Wilf to sigh.

"Come on, Donna," he told her gently "how about I read a bit to you? Maybe that will help?"

Donna looked torn, unsure whether to let her Gramps read the book to her like she was a little kid, but she knew she had to read it for school. With a sigh, she nodded, and Wilf began reading aloud.

**~StormWolf10~**

"_I've called you here on this __endless night__, because we have a murderer in our midst." The Doctor announced, surveying the occupants of the room carefully "And when it comes to detection, there's none finer. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Agatha Christie." _

_He gestured towards Agatha, who stood just as the Doctor took a seat._

"_This is __a crooked house__. A house of secrets. To understand the solution, we must examine them all. Starting with you, Miss Redmond." Agatha told them, turning to Robina Redmond quickly._

_Robina looked shocked, brow furrowing slightly._

"_But I'm innocent, surely?" she asked, fear evident in her voice._

"_You've never met these people, and these people have never met you. I think the real Robina Redmond never left London. You're impersonating her." Agatha replied calmly, a slight smile on her face._

"_How silly. What proof do you have?" Robina questioned, a slight scoff in her voice. _

"_You said you'd been to the toilet." Agatha reminded her._

"_Oh, I know this!" Donna chipped in quickly with a grin, leaning forward in her seat "If she was really posh, she'd say loo!"_

_Ignoring Donna's statement, Agatha picked up a locksmith's case that had been on the table._

"_Earlier today, Miss Noble and I found this on the lawn, right beneath your bathroom window. You must have heard that Miss Noble was searching the bedrooms, so you panicked. You ran upstairs and disposed of the evidence."_

"_I've never seen that thing before in my life!" Robina protested._

"_What's inside it?" Lady Eddison questioned, frowning. _

"_The tools of your trade, Miss Redmond. Or should I say, the Unicorn. You came to this house with one sole intention. To steal the Firestone." Agatha announced, turning back to Miss Redmond._

'_Robina' sighed, knowing she'd been caught. She rolled her eyes and spoke._

"_Oh, all right then." She announced, a strong cockney accent coming through, in sharp contrast to the cultured, posh accent she'd previously been using. Donna blinked in surprise. "It's a fair cop. Yes, I'm the bleeding Unicorn. Ever so nice to meet you, I don't think. I took my chance in the dark and nabbed it. Go on then, you knobs. Arrest me. Sling me in jail."_

_She threw the necklace to the Doctor, who caught it._

"_So, is she the murderer?" Donna asked in confusion._

"_Don't be so thick." Robina told her snidely "I might be a thief, but, well, I ain't no killer."_

"_Quite." Agatha agreed "There are darker motives at work. And in examining this household, we come to you, Colonel."_

_Colonel Curbishley sighed. _

"_Damn it, woman. You with your perspicacity. You've rumbled me." He announced, pushing himself out of his wheelchair._

_Lady Eddison gasped in shock, eyes wide._

"_Hugh, you can walk. But why?" Lady Eddison asked her husband in confusion._

"_My darling, how else could I be certain of keeping you by my side?" Curbishley asked tenderly, holding her hand._

"_I don't understand." Lady Eddison admitted quietly. _

"_You're still a beautiful woman, Clemency. Sooner or later some chap will turn your head. I couldn't bear that. Staying in the chair was the only way I could be certain of keeping you. Confound it, Mrs Christie, how did you discover the truth?" Curbishley announced, turning back to Agatha on the last sentence._

"_Er, actually I had no idea. I was just going to say you're completely innocent." Agatha admitted apologetically._

"_Oh. Oh." Curbishley murmured, momentarily stunned._

"_Sorry." Agatha told him with an apologetic smile._

"_Well. Well, shall I sit down then?" Curbishley asked, still slightly stunned._

"_I think you better had." Agatha agreed gently. _

"_So he's not the murderer?" Donna asked, watching as Curbishley sat back down again._

"_Indeed, not. To find the truth, let's return to this." She announced, gesturing towards the Firestone "Far more than the Unicorn's object of desire. The Firestone has quite a history. Lady Eddison." _

"_I've done nothing!" Lady Eddison protested, fear evident as her voice trembled slightly._

"_You brought it back from India, did you not? Before you met the Colonel. You came home with malaria, and confined yourself to this house for six months, in a room that has been kept locked ever since, which I rather think means-" Agatha began, only to be interrupted by a shaking Lady Eddison._

"_Stop, please." She begged, tears welling in her eyes._

"_I'm so sorry. But you had fallen pregnant in India. Unmarried and ashamed, you hurried back to England with your confidante, a young maid later to become housekeeper. Miss Chandrakala." Agatha completed sympathetically._

"_Clemency, is this true?" Colonel Curbishley asked his wife in confusion._

_Instead of replying, Lady Eddison only mumbled; "My poor baby. I had to give him away. The shame of it."_

"_But you never said a word." Colonel Curbishley continued, hurt._

"_I had no choice. Imagine the scandal. The family name. I'm British. I carry on." Lady Eddison told him bitterly. _

"_And it was no ordinary pregnancy." The Doctor piped up, speaking for the first time since Agatha had taken the floor._

"_How can you know that?" Lady Eddison asked him, eyes wide in shock._

"_Excuse me Agatha, this is my territory." He announced to the woman, standing up before continuing "But when you heard that buzzing sound in the dining room, you said, 'it can't be'. Why did you say that?"_

"_You'd never believe it." Lady Eddison countered quickly, eyes still wide with shock and fear._

"_The Doctor has opened my mind to believe many things." Agatha told the woman gently._

"_It was forty years ago, in the heat of Delhi, late one night. I was alone, and that's when I saw it. A dazzling light in the sky. The next day, he came to the house. Christopher, the most handsome man I'd ever seen. Our love blazed like a wildfire. I held nothing back. And in return he showed me the incredible truth about himself. He'd made himself human, to learn about us. This was his true shape." Lady Eddison began carefully "I loved him so much, it didn't matter. But he was stolen from me. 1885, the year of the great monsoon. The river Jumna rose up and broke its banks. He was __taken at the flood__. But Christopher left me a parting gift. A jewel like no other. I wore it always. Part of me never forgot. I kept it close, always."_

"_Just like a man." 'Robina' smirked cruelly "Flashes his family jewels and you end up with a bun in the oven."_

"_A poor little child. Forty years ago, Miss Chandrakala took that newborn babe to an orphanage. But Professor Peach worked it out. He found the birth certificate." Agatha revealed. _

"_Oh, that's maiden. Maiden name." Donna chipped in, realising._

_The Doctor blinked when he saw that Donna was now eating a bowl of grapes. _

"_Precisely." Agatha agreed._

"_So she killed him?" Donna questioned._

"_I did not!" Lady Eddison protested._

"_Miss Chandrakala feared that the Professor had unearthed your secret. She was coming to warn you." Agatha continued._

"_So she killed her." Donna continued determinedly._

"_I did not!" Lady Eddison protested again, growing hysterical._

"_Lady Eddison is innocent. Because at this point, Doctor." Agatha announced, stepping back for the Doctor to take to the floor again._

"_Thank you." The Doctor told Agatha "At this point, when we consider the lies and the secrets, and the key to these events, then we have to consider it was you, Donna Noble."_

"_What?" Donna squeaked, wide eyed and confused "Who did I kill?"_

"_No, but you said it all along. The vital clue." The Doctor told her, exasperated "This whole thing is being acted out like a murder mystery, which means it was you, Agatha Christie."_

"_I beg your pardon, sir?" Agatha asked in shock. _

"_So she killed them?" Donna asked._

"_No. But she wrote. She wrote those brilliant, clever books." The Doctor explained "And who's her greatest admirer? __The moving finger__ points at you, Lady Eddison." _

"_Don't. Leave me alone!" Lady Eddison protested, growing closer and closer to tears. _

"_So she did kill them." Donna continued. _

"_No. But just think. Last Thursday night, what were you doing?" the Doctor asked Lady Eddison, eyes wide and imploring. _

"_I was I was in the library. I was reading my favourite Agatha Christie, thinking about her plots, and how clever she must be. How is that relevant?" Lady Eddison told them, frowning._

"_Just think. What else happened on Thursday night?" the Doctor probed, looking over at Reverend Golightly._

"_I'm sorry?" Reverend Golightly asked, frowning. _

"_You said on the lawn, this afternoon. Last Thursday night, those boys broke into your church." The Doctor reminded the vicar. _

"_That's correct. They did. I discovered the two of them. Thieves in the night. I was most perturbed." Golightly explained carefully "But I apprehended them."_

"_Really?" the Doctor asked, unconvinced "A man of God against two strong lads? A man in his forties? Or, should I say forty years old, exactly?"_

"_Oh, my God." Lady Eddison breathed, realising. _

"_Lady Eddison, your child, how old would he be now?" the Doctor asked gently._

"_Forty. He's forty." Lady Eddison admitted quietly. _

"_Your child has come home." The Doctor told her. _

"_Oh, this is poppycock!" Reverend Golightly protested. _

"_Oh? You said you were taught by the Christian Fathers, meaning you were raised in an orphanage." The Doctor reminded the Reverend. _

"_My son. Can it be?" Lady Eddison asked, more to herself._

"_You found those thieves, Reverend, and you got angry. A proper, deep anger, for the first time in your life, and it broke the genetic lock. You changed." The Doctor continued, watching Reverend Golightly intently "You realised your inheritance. After all these years, you knew who you were. Oh, and then it all kicks off, because this isn't just a jewel. It's a Vespiform telepathic recorder. It's part of you, your brain, your very essence. And when you activated, so did the Firestone. It beamed your full identity directly into your mind. And, at the same time, it absorbed the works of Agatha Christie directly from Lady Eddison. It all became part of you. The mechanics of those novels formed a template in your brain. You've killed, in this pattern, because that's what you think the world is. It turns out, we are in the middle of a murder mystery. One of yours, Dame Agatha." _

"_Dame?" Agatha questioned. _

"_Oh. Sorry, not yet." The Doctor cringed at his slip-up. _

"_So he killed them, yes? Definitely?" Donna asked the Doctor._

"_Yes." The Doctor told her, nodding._

"_Well, this has certainly been a most entertaining evening. Really, you can't believe any of this surely, Lady Edizzon." Golightly announced._

"_Lady who?" the Doctor asked, knowing what was happening. _

"_Lady Edizzzzon." The vicar repeated. _

"_Little bit of buzzing there, Vicar." The Doctor told him, tapping at his own Adams apple._

"_Don't make me angry." _

_Why? What happens then?" the Doctor asked. _

"_Damn it, you humanzz, worshipping your tribal sky godzz. I am so much more. That night, the universe exploded in my mind. I wanted to take what wazz mine. And you, Agatha Christie, with your railway station bookstall romancezz, what'z to stop me killing you?"_

"_Oh, my dear God. My child!" Lady Eddison murmured, unable to tear her gaze from her new-found son. _

"_What'zz to stop me killing you all?"_

"_Forgive me." Lady Eddison murmured, watching as the Reverend's body began shaking, blurring and morphing into the giant wasp they'd seen earlier. _

"_No, no, Clemency, come back. Keep away. Keep away, my darling." Curbishley told her, reaching for his wife's arm. _

"_No. No more murder. If my imagination made you kill, then my imagination will find a way to stop you, foul creature!" Agatha announced, standing straight in front of the creature._

_And then, Firestone in hand, she ran from the room._

**~StormWolf10~**

When Wilf finally finished the book, Donna was dozing, her head on his shoulder.

"I got you a coffee, Dad-" Sylvia trailed off when she saw that Donna was dozing "How long's she been out?"

"Only about ten minutes," Wilf replied, taking the Styrofoam cup of tea from his daughter.

Sylvia sighed and took a seat beside her daughter's bed.

"I just wish she weren't so stubborn and admit to the pain," Sylvia murmured "at least then they could give her some pain relief."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Mickey's been left out, I'm afraid. I have nothing against him, he's an awesome character, I just couldn't make him work in the series 2 parts, and only realised recently that that meant he wouldn't be in the series 4 chapters.. *facepalm***

Nurse Carlisle looked up in confusion as a loud American voice rang through the ward. She didn't know whether to laugh or sigh when she saw Jack Harkness entering the ward, one leg propped up in the wheelchair.

"What did you do this time, Jack?" she asked with a grin.

Jack grinned back.

"I may have gotten my cast a little wet," he admitted with a cheeky grin "and they said it would be quicker to have a new cast done up here on the ward."

Nurse Carlisle shook her head, saying a quick hello to Jack's foster father as he went to fill in the forms at the Nurses' desk.

"Come on then," she told him with a sigh, wheeling him towards the room Timothy was in "let's find you a bed."

"Timothy's still here, then." Jack noted quietly as he was wheeled into the room. He then blinked at seeing Donna in the bed beside Timothy's. "And Martha's gone."

"Hello," Donna called over, a slight smile on her face upon seeing Jack.

Jack grinned back as he carefully transferred himself from the wheelchair to the bed.

"Hi," he told her with a grin "I'm Jack Harkness."

"Donna Noble." Donna replied.

"I'll leave you two to it, then," Nurse Carlisle told them with a smile, making for the door with the now-empty wheelchair.

"I don't suppose he's woken up since you've been in here?" Jack asked, nodding over at Timothy's still form.

Donna shook her head.

"Nope. Why?" she asked, frowning.

"I've been in a few times in the past few weeks. I just wondered if he'd woken up yet." Jack replied, trying to sound casual and failing miserably.

Donna nodded in understanding, and was just about to speak when Doctor Lewis entered the room with a young, dark-skinned girl following him.

"Martha Jones!" Jack announced with a grin "What brings you back here?"

"I could ask you the same thing!" Martha replied with a smirk, crossing to the empty bed by Jack.

"Got my cast wet," Jack replied with a grimace, momentarily distracted as Doctor Lewis crossed to Timothy's bedside.

"My arm's aching," Martha explained, raising the arm they'd operated on "and it's slightly swollen."

Martha then blinked, realising that Donna was in the room too.

"Hi," she smiled at the other girl "I'm Martha Jones,"

"Donna," Donna replied with a slight wave.

**~StormWolf10~**

_The Doctor laughed as he surveyed the monitor. All his old friends were there, connected by some 'Subwave Network'. He knew he should be questioning how and why, but right now, he couldn't bring himself to care._

"_Sarah Jane. Who's that boy?" the Doctor murmured, pointing towards Sarah Jane and a teenage boy in one section of the screen "That must be Torchwood. Oh, they're brilliant! Look at you all, you clever people!"_

"_That's Martha." Donna noted, leaning forward to point at the screen. And then she noticed Jack. "And who's he?" _

"_Captain Jack." The Doctor answered quickly, glancing over at his companion "Don't. Just don't." _

"_It's like an outer space Facebook." Donna grinned._

_The Doctor's smile faded slightly as he surveyed the screen. _

"_Everyone except Rose." _

**~StormWolf10~**

Nurse Carlisle sighed, slumping back down in a chair. It had been a busy morning on the ward, so busy in fact that the little room Timothy Lord was in was almost full up. Not only were Timothy Lord, Donna Noble, Jack Harkness and Martha Jones in there, but Sarah Jane Smith had been admitted with chest pains, and Doctor Lewis had just received a call from ICU to say that Rose Tyler was well enough to be moved back down to the ward. The little girl was eager to see Timothy again, and so Doctor Lewis had quickly complied and headed up to collect her. Just then, the large lift at the end of the corridor opened and Doctor Lewis came out backwards, along with several orderlies. They were pulling a bed between them, and Nurse Carlisle grinned when she saw that the child on the bed with Rose.

"Hi!" Rose piped up, waving eagerly at Nurse Carlisle as she passed.

Nurse Carlisle grinned and waved back at her, smiling reassuringly at Jackie, who was following. The Nurse couldn't help but chuckle when she heard Jack yell "Rose!" as Rose entered the room. Getting to her feet, she quickly crossed to the room, watching as Doctor Lewis set Rose up in a bed beside Timothy. It wasn't the bed she'd been in before, of course, as that was the one Donna was now in, but the girl seemed happy enough.

"Timothy!" she called over to him as Jackie tried to encourage her to lie back in the bed "Timothy! I'm back!"

**~StormWolf10~**

_The Doctor blinked. Donna was looking at him strangely, a small half-smile on her face as her gaze flitted from his face, to a spot just over his right shoulder, and back again. He couldn't fathom why exactly she was smiling; the streets of London (if not Earth) were flooded with Daleks, the street they were in abandoned and dark. Frowning slightly, the Doctor slowly turned to gaze up the empty street. And that's when he saw her. Rose Tyler. She was stood at the far end of the road, illuminated by the sparse few streetlights that were still working. Even from this distance, the Doctor could tell that she was grinning. But she couldn't be here. She was gone. Safe, yes, but gone. And yet he could see her, grinning at him. So close, yet so far away. Before he was even aware of it, he was making his way towards her. His feet were moving of their own accord, his pace becoming faster, as he went from a walk, to a stride, to a jog, to a sprint, to a full-out dash. And Rose Tyler was running towards him. A grin spread across his face as one very important thing hit home, filling him with indescribable joy and hope. This was real. It echoed throughout his mind. This was real; this was real; this was real. An ever-growing mantra. And then he saw it, out of the corner of his eye. A Dalek, previously unnoticed, gliding out into the street._

"_Exterminate!"_

_One minute the Doctor was running towards Rose, and the next he was on the ground. And the mantra continued. This was real. Oh, Rassilon, this was real. He was vaguely aware that the Dalek had only grazed him, but it still hurt. He was going to regenerate… There was the sound of hurried footsteps, and suddenly Rose was there, on her knees beside him. This was real._

"_I've got you! It missed you. Look, it's me, Doctor!" Rose told him, lifting his head slightly and cradling him in her arms._

_He could already see the tears welling in her eyes. _

"_Rose!" he gasped out, attempting a weak, shaky smile. _

"_Hi." Rose told him, smiling back weakly._

"_Long time no see." He joked, desperate to stop that tiny little voice in the back of his mind, the mantra that chanted over and over again that this was real. This was real. He had only just gotten Rose back, and now he was dying. This was real. _

"_Yeah. Been busy, you know." Rose joked, but her small smile quickly diminished as she let fear take over "Don't die. Oh, my God. Don't die. Oh my god, don't die!"_

_There was suddenly a gunshot, and Jack was there, gun in hand, still aimed at the now-smoking Dalek. Donna had reached them by now, but the Doctor only had eyes for Rose._

"_Get him into the TARDIS, quick. Move." Jack instructed as Donna moved to help Rose haul the injured Time Lord to his feet._

**~StormWolf10~**

Rose watched Timothy carefully, wide-eyed.

"But he did!" she insisted, tugging at her Mum's hand.

"I think you're getting tired, Rose," Jackie told her daughter gently, moving to help the eight year old back into her own bed.

"But his hand moved!" Rose protested desperately as Jackie led her back to her bed.

Jack, Martha, Donna and Sarah Jane were all watching the girl carefully, but none of them had seen enough to back the girl up.

"Rose, you're still unwell," Nurse Carlisle told her gently as she helped Jackie settle the girl back in her bed "we'll keep an eye on Timothy while you sleep, but I don't think there'll be any difference when you wake up tomorrow."

"But-" Rose began, only to be cut off by Nurse Carlisle again.

"Now come on, Rose, it's lights out now, and you're disturbing everyone else. As I said, the night staff will keep an eye on Timothy during the night."

Teary-eyed, Rose burrowed under her duvet.

**~StormWolf10~**

_Donna and Rose lowered the injured Time Lord onto the TARDIS grating as carefully as they could._

"_What, what do we do?. There must be some medicine or something!" Donna insisted, almost as teary as Rose now, feeling absolutely helpless as the Doctor became paler and paler._

"_Just step back. Rose, do as I say, and get back. He's dying and you know what happens next." Jack instructed, leading Donna to the opposite side of the console room and encouraging the distraught Rose to follow, although she remained beside the Doctor. _

_The Doctor listened as his friends moved across the console room. The voices in his head were still there, still whispering. This was real._

"_What do you mean? He can't!" Donna told them tearily. _

"_Oh, no. I came all this way!" Rose whispered, still on her knees beside him._

_This was real. _

"_What do you mean, what happens next?" Donna demanded, clutching at Jack._

_The Doctor's right hand began glowing gold. This was real._

"_It's starting." The Doctor murmured, holding his right hand up to his face. _

_This was real._

"_Here we go. Good luck, Doctor." Jack announced to the Time Lord as he carefully tugged Rose across the console room and away from the Doctor._

_Although he couldn't see it, the Doctor knew that Rose was struggling against Jack as he pulled her into his side, hugging her tight. This was real._

"_Will someone please tell me what is going on?" Donna demanded, growing more and more scared._

_The Doctor's hearts clenched at the fear in Donna's voice. This was real._

"_When he's dying, his er, his body, it repairs itself. It changes." Rose explained, crying. She then returned her attention to the Doctor "But you can't!"_

_The Doctor wanted to cry, to scream, to beg and plead with whatever deity out there that would listen to him. Not like this. He didn't want it to end like this. Not now he'd finally gotten Rose Tyler back. This was real._

" _I'm sorry, it's too late. I'm regenerating." _

_And as his entire body was engulfed in golden light, just one sentence filled his head. This was real._


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Another chapter! Don't forget to read and review, guys! Turned out slightly different to how I was going to do it, but the idea struck me and I thought this would be a much better way to do it! Hope you enjoy!**

Nurse Williams didn't know what to say. He was stood by Timothy Lord's bed, watching the boy carefully. The boy's hand had definitely moved. Only slightly, but it had moved. If this had been any other child in the room, it would have been dismissed. But Timothy Lord had been in a coma for weeks now, not so much as a twitch. The little girl in the bed to his left, Rose Tyler, had tried to tell Nurse Carlisle earlier that she had seen Tim's hand move, but they'd dismissed it as the girl being tired, and being so desperate for the boy to wake up and actually talk to her that she'd imagined it. But Nurse Williams knew that he hadn't imagined it. Letting out a slow breath, he tore himself away from the bed and hurried to the Nurses' station. He needed to make a log of it on the computer, and then he needed to page Doctor Lewis. Because they couldn't be sure, but it looked like Timothy Elliot Lord was waking up.

**~StormWolf10~**

_Jack, Rose and Donna all stood in shock as the Doctor checked on his 'spare' hand in a jar. It was now fizzing with golden regeneration energy, after the Doctor had healed himself and transferred the excess energy into his hand. _

"_There now." The Doctor announced with a grin, blowing the jar and watching as the glowing faded away "You see? Used the regeneration energy to heal myself, but soon as I was done, I didn't need to change. I didn't want to. Why would I?" He adjusted his tie and straightened up "Look at me. So, to stop the energy going all the way, I siphoned off the rest into a handy bio-matching receptacle, namely my hand. My hand there. My handy spare hand." He then looked over at Rose "Remember? Christmas Day, Sycorax. Lost my hand in a sword fight? That's my hand. What do you think?"_

"_You're still you?" Rose asked nervously. _

"_I'm still me." The Doctor agreed with a hug._

_Rose barrelled into him, hugging him tight. The Doctor, of course, was only happy enough to return the hug, grinning to himself. He didn't see Donna turn to Jack._

"_You can hug me, if you want." Donna told him. Jack laughed, and Donna became more insistent "No, really. You can hug me."_

_Jack blinked._

**~StormWolf10~**

Doctor Lewis stood at the foot of Timothy's bed, surveying the boy carefully.

"You say his hand moved?" Doctor Lewis asked.

Nurse Williams nodded quickly.

"And his heart rate went up slightly, as if he were about to wake," he added as Doctor Lewis pondered this.

Doctor Lewis nodded.

"Ok," Doctor Lewis began carefully "I'd like you to keep an eye on him. He seems to be recovering from the meningitis, which means recovery is imminent. We'll still have to keep him in for a while, but if he does wake up in the next few hours, don't phone the Childrens home until later this morning."

"Childrens home?" Nurse Williams echoed.

Doctor Lewis nodded.

"Yes," Doctor Lewis replied "he lost his parents some years ago now."

Doctor Lewis noticed the quiet but thoughtful look that spread across Nurse Williams' face before the young man gave a weak smile and schooled his features.

**~StormWolf10~**

"_Doctor!" Donna yelled through the TARDIS door, banging on it and pulling on it._

_It still wouldn't budge, and she was getting more than a little panicked. _

"_Stop it! She's my friend. Now open the door and let her out!" the Doctor bellowed at the Dalek Supreme. _

"_This is Time Lord treachery!" the Dalek Supreme grated._

"_Me? The door just closed on its own!" the Doctor protested angrily. _

"_Nevertheless, the TARDIS is a weapon and it will be destroyed." The Dalek Supreme continued._

_A trapdoor suddenly opened beneath the TARDIS, and it dropped out of sight. Immediately, the Doctor ran towards the trapdoor, fear evident in his eyes._

"_What are you doing? Bring it back!" the Doctor demanded angrily. _

"_Doctor!" Donna yelled as the TARDIS plummeted down into the heart of the Crucible._

_She was clutching at the railing, the force at which the TARDIS was falling causing her to fall to the floor._

"_What have you done? Where's it going?" the Doctor asked, rounding on the Dalek Supreme._

"_The Crucible has a heart of Z-neutrino energy. The TARDIS will be deposited into the core." The Dalek Supreme answered. _

"_You can't!" the Doctor protested, panicking "You've taken the defences down. It'll be torn apart!"_

_By now, the TARDIS had dropped into the core of the Crucible, the molten lava already burning the TARDIS, and the roundels inside burst, scattering glass across the console room._

"_But Donna's still in there!" Rose told the Dalek Supreme, wide-eyed._

"_Let her go!" the Doctor continued, growing angrier and angrier._

"_The female and the Tardis will perish together. Observe. The last child of Gallifrey is powerless." _

_A screen appeared out of thin air, showing the TARDIS bobbing up and down in the molten core of the Crucible. _

"_Please. I'm begging you. I'll do anything! Put me in her place. You can do anything to me, I don't care, just get her out of there!" the Doctor begged, becoming desperate._

"_You are connected to the Tardis. Now feel it die."_

**~StormWolf10~**

"Rose, why don't you eat something?" Sarah Jane suggested, watching the girl from across the room.

Rose shook her head mutely. She had shuffled over to the chair beside Timothy's bed shortly after she'd gotten dressed, and she hadn't moved for the past half hour. Jackie had gone down to phone a few family members to let them know Rose was out of ICU, and had asked the older children to try and persuade Rose to eat some breakfast. However, none of them had been able to persuade her, even Jack, and Rose's breakfast was now going cold.

"Rose, he hasn't moved since you woke up," Jack pointed out, silently cursing that night nurse for telling Rose he'd seen Timothy's hand move during the night.

Rose still didn't move, and Donna sighed, debating rather to call a nurse in. Just then, however, the door opened, and they all looked up to see Wilf entering the room.

"Hello, sweetheart," he greeted Donna with a smile, a paper tucked under his arm "and how are the rest of you?"

Martha, Jack and Sarah Jane all smiled and said hello to Wilf, all assuring him that they were fine.

"And you, Rose?" Wilf prompted the little girl.

Rose smiled back weakly, but made no further move.

"She won't eat her breakfast," Donna told her Granddad quietly "she's convinced Timothy's gonna wake up today."

"Ah," Wilf realised "that Nurse Williams must have said something to her about last night."

Donna nodded, and Wilf headed over to Rose, picking up her bowl of cereal from her bedside table before sitting beside her and handing her the bowl.

**~StormWolf10~**

_All around her, the roundels were exploding, and Donna screamed as yet more glass flew across the room. However, the noise of the explosions was suddenly drowned out, replaced by one thing. A heartbeat. A steady thumping that filled the room. Donna found herself immediately drawn towards the jar containing the Doctor's 'spare' hand. For some reason she couldn't explain, she suddenly felt comforted, and reached out to touch it. As her fingertips came in contact with the cool glass, golden regeneration energy filled the jar, bubbling and simmering, spreading up Donna's hand, up her arm, towards her torso. She began trembling with the power of it, and suddenly the jar shattered. The hand lay on the grating, twitching and glowing. Donna watched in shock as energy swirled around the hand, spreading up and out, and up and out, forming the outline of a body, shimmering gold. Donna gaped as the energy died away, revealing pale, freckled flesh. The Doctor. The Doctor suddenly shot into an upright position…_

**~StormWolf10~**

Timothy Elliot Lord shot into an upright position, a cry on his lips. He wanted to cry out, but there was something in his mouth, and he suddenly choked, coughing against whatever it was. He was in a hospital room, he noted, and the other children in the room were all gaping at him. Suddenly, nurses and doctors swarmed around him, carefully laying him back down. One nurse quickly removed the object from his mouth, and Timothy noticed that it was something they used in TV shows to help people breathe.

"Timothy? Timothy, I'm Doctor Lewis, I've been looking after you during your stay here." Doctor Lewis told the boy gently "You've had something called Bacterial Meningitis, and you've been in a coma for several weeks."

Timothy blinked, unsure what to say to the man. He opened his mouth to speak, slightly distracted as some more nurses took out some of the wires and wiped his face and neck with a damp cloth. However, just then, a little blonde girl entered the room, holding a woman's hand. The girl stopped, spying Timothy through the crowds of medical staff. Timothy blinked, looking at the girl. Small, slight and blonde. Brown eyes.

"Timothy?" the girl questioned, just loud enough for him to hear.

Her eyes were wide, she was clearly shocked. Despite the nurses trying to hold him down in the bed, Timothy sat up, swinging his legs over to slip off the bed. He didn't take his eyes off the girl, and snatches of one-sided conversations filled his head;

_"Timothy! Timothy! I'm back!"_

"_Bu' I have to go to Timothy. 'm all he has left."_

"_It's a good job I'm here, then. He can be in our family, right, Mum?"_

"_I am recovering from a heart operation, you know, so no more shocks, ok?"_

"_Hello, Timothy Lord. I'm Rose Tyler."_

Before Timothy knew it, his feet were carrying him- somewhat shakily- towards the blonde girl he recognised from his dreams.

"Rose," he murmured, a grin forming on his face.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: I would be willing to do an epilogue after this, if people are interested. It would be 10/Rose (Tim/Rose), so if you'd be interested, review and let me know, otherwise I'll just leave the story at the end of this chapter :)**

Timothy smiled shyly at Rose as Doctor Lewis checked his blood pressure.

"Why are you in?" he asked quietly.

"Heart surgery," Rose replied, equally as shy.

Timothy nodded, vaguely remembering something about a heart operation being mentioned while he was in a coma. The two children seemed oblivious to the fact they were being watched by Jack and Donna in amusement. Sarah Jane and Martha were both in X-Ray, but the other two were watching everything intently so they could fill them in when they returned. It seemed that Timothy was a rather shy boy, but was nearly always smiling, mostly at Rose.

"Now, sorry to disturb you two," Doctor Lewis broke into the somewhat slow conversation between the two children "but is there anything you want, Tim?"

Timothy blinked, thinking for a few moments before answering shyly.

"I'd…I'd like a bath."

**~StormWolf10~**

Timothy felt a lot better after the bath, even if it was a little awkward; he was still hooked up to a few machines, and felt a little weak and shaky still. He had a bit of a headache, and Doctor Lewis had explained that he might always get headaches because of the meningitis. A nurse had helped him wash, and when he got back to his bed, Timothy found that his social worker was waiting for him.

"Hello, Timothy," she greeted him with an obviously fake smile "it's so good to see you up and about."

Timothy didn't reply, merely crawled back under the thin hospital duvet.

"How come you didn't come and see him?"

The social worker looked up in confusion, glancing over at Rose, who was sat on her bed, arms folded.

"I'm sorry?" the social worker asked in confusion.

"Timothy never had any visitors!" Rose pointed out, glaring at the social worker.

The social worker looked at Rose carefully for a few moments, before glancing at her watch.

"Well, I must be going now," she announced, standing up from the chair she was in "I'll see you later, Timothy."

**~StormWolf10~**

"And she could hear a _drip_, _drip_, _drip_ coming from the bathroom. She pushed open the door, intending to go and turn the tap off. And that's when she saw it. Her dog was dead in the bath, his blood dripping out of him!"

Rose quickly ducked under her covers, while Timothy went rather pale. Sarah Jane, Martha and Donna, however, merely laughed at Jack's ghost story.

"What?" Jack asked in annoyance.

"Oh come on, Jack! Everyone's heard of that one!" Donna laughed.

Jack scowled and flopped back against the pillows. He was being discharged the next morning as they hadn't managed to replace his cast until late that evening. Already, he'd scribbled down his address and phone number for the others, intent on staying in contact with his new-found friends. The others had done the same for him, promising to stay in touch as they handed over mobile numbers, addresses and house numbers.

"Are you alright, Rose?" Sarah Jane called cautiously across the room.

The children were trying to be as quiet as possible, as both Donna and Rose had their Mums sleeping in the narrow fold-down beds beside their own beds. None of them fancied getting an earful from Jackie and Sylvia, but that didn't stop them from telling stories late into the night. Rose slowly withdrew from beneath the duvet, nodding meekly.

"Yeah," she replied quietly.

"Maybe we should stop with the ghost stories," Martha suggested, still smiling.

"Maybe you guys should get some sleep,"

All six children froze, before looking over at the door. Nurse Williams was stood there in blue scrubs, arms folded across his scrubs. He didn't look too annoyed, however, and he was smiling slightly.

"It's getting late," he continued "and I don't want to be called back in here because Rose and Timothy are having nightmares, so no more horror stories either."

"But I've spent weeks sleeping!" Timothy protested, attempting to stifle a yawn.

Nurse Williams grinned and crossed the room, tucking the boy under the covers.

"Yeah, but your body's still healing," he told Tim gently.

As Nurse Williams headed back over to the door, he paused, making sure all the children were lying down in bed.

"Do any of you want a nightlight on, or something?" he asked them quietly.

The four older children shook their heads, but Tim and Rose nodded. Smiling slightly, Nurse Williams flicked a switch and a few small lights came on around the room.

"Night, guys."

**~StormWolf10~**

Over the next week, the children began being discharged. Jack was first, followed shortly by Sarah Jane. Martha was next, and finally Donna. That left just Rose and Timothy left, and the two had become the best of friends. They'd both promised to stay in touch with the others, but Jackie suspected it would be Timothy and Rose who'd stay in touch most. Nurse Williams seemed to be looking after them every night, and Tim had grown attached to the nurse rather quickly, as had Rose. However, neither of them had been expecting to see him one morning after his shift.

"Hiya, Timothy," Nurse Williams greeted the little boy with a smile.

Timothy smiled back uncertainly, noting that Nurse Williams wasn't in his scrubs; he was instead wearing a pair of jeans, trainers and a black and white shirt. He was also being followed by a tall ginger woman Timothy hadn't seen before, and Timothy's social worker.

"Hi," Tim replied shyly, unsure about the new woman.

"We wanted to talk to you about something," Nurse Williams admitted "that's why your social worker's here. Is that alright, Timothy?"

"I suppose so, Nurse Williams," Timothy answered with a slight nod of his head.

Jackie quickly ushered Rose out for a walk, sensing that this was a conversation better had alone.

"It's just Rory today, actually, Tim." Rory told the boy with a smile, sitting on the edge of his bed "I'm off duty."

Timothy nodded and looked at Rory expectantly.

"This is my wife Amy," Rory continued, nodding over at the ginger woman, who smiled and waved back "and we were wondering if you would consider letting us adopt you."

Timothy blinked, looking from Rory, to Amy, and back to Rory.

"Ok," he began cautiously.

"Of course," the social worker suddenly piped up "it won't be immediate. It will take several months for the adoption to go through, and there will be several checks and evaluations before you move in with them."

Timothy nodded.

"We aren't expecting you to make a decision immediately," Amy told the boy, crouching in front of him "you can have as much time as you need to think about it."

Timothy was momentarily surprised by her strong Scottish accent, but he quickly nodded and smiled.

**~StormWolf10~**

Over the next few months, Timothy's condition improved. Soon, he was left alone in the room as Rose was discharged. However, she came to visit him every Sunday, and even occasionally came after school. It had also been known for her to be allowed to stay a little past visiting hours, as many of the staff remembered her from her time on the ward, and knew how close she and Timothy had grown. Finally, after months of being cooped up in the hospital, with only a few sparse walks around the grounds to placate him, Timothy was being discharged. He waved goodbye happily to the staff as he left the ward, chattering excitedly to the orderly in the lift on his way down, his rucksack on his back and ginger hair sticking up in all directions. He virtually ran for the doors when he saw the entrance, and was soon led to the car park. He clambered into the car, grinning to himself as his rucksack was slung in the seat beside him. He watched in silence as they pulled out of the car park, driving further and further away from the hospital that had been his home for so many months now.

"You alright?"

Timothy looked round, grinning as he saw Rory glancing in the rear view mirror at him.

"Yes, Dad," he replied with a grin.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Final chapter, guys :) This takes place a decade after the last one…**

Timothy ran a comb through his ginger hair, flattening it slightly. Sighing, he realised that it was probably the tidiest he could get it, he adjusted his tie. This was it. The one thing that could make or break the rest of his life. Taking a deep breath, he left his bedroom, hurrying down the stairs.

"Are you off now?" Amy called from the kitchen.

"Yeah, Mum. Not sure what time I'll be back, don't wait up," he called back as he grabbed his suit jacket.

Grabbing his keys, he headed out the front door and unlocked his car, a blue Clio. His parents had bought it for him for his eighteenth birthday just over a year ago, and he loved it to pieces. Making sure he had everything, Tim climbed into his car and set off to pick Rose up.

**~StormWolf10~**

"Jack!" Rose squealed, virtually propelling herself at the man.

Jack laughed and hugged her tight.

"How are you doing, Rose?" he asked with a grin "And I must say you're looking particularly lovely tonight!"

"Stop it!" the Doctor groused as he locked his car.

"What? I was just saying hello!" Jack replied.

The two men simultaneously grinned, and Jack reluctantly let Rose go to hug Timothy.

"Tim! Good to see you again," Jack announced, hugging his friend of a decade.

"And you," the Doctor answered "I don't suppose you've seen the others yet?"

"Donna's already inside with Sarah Jane," Jack explained "and Martha's on her way."

Timothy nodded, and the trio headed inside. They tried to do this at least once every few months; the group of friends would meet up for an evening out, have a meal and a chat. Of course, the girls saw it as a chance to dress up, and Jack certainly wasn't complaining. Tonight, however, was the one time both men had worn suits. Because tonight was going to be very, very special.

**~StormWolf10~**

"I'm working at Henricks now," Rose explained, wrinkling her nose slightly "it's not great, but it's money at the end of the day."

Donna nodded in understanding. Like the eighteen year old, she was stuck in a job she hated, as Donna was a temp. Sarah Jane, of course, was working hard to become a journalist, and Martha was in medical school. Jack had gone into some kind of Government job that he couldn't really speak about, and Timothy was still torn between becoming a teacher and becoming a doctor. He'd even toyed with the idea of becoming a nurse like his adopted father.

"Who's for another round?" Jack announced suddenly, grinning as he stood up.

Everyone quickly agreed, and Jack wandered off to the bar, dragging Timothy after him.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" he asked his friend.

Timothy blinked.

"Err, how about the right moment?" Timothy suggested "Jack, I can't just announce it in the middle of the restaurant!"

"Sure you can!" Jack replied, pausing momentarily to give the barman his order "Just come out with it! We're all in suspense here!"

Timothy sighed and glanced back over at the table where Rose was laughing and chatting with the rest of the girls.

"I can't really get down on one knee here, though, can I?" he asked with a sigh.

"Of course you can, Tim," Jack answered quickly as he handed the money for the drinks over "just do it! And for god's sake, don't make a fuss about getting your trousers dirty!"

"It's a new suit!" Tim muttered as they headed back over to the table with the drinks.

As Tim slid into his seat beside Rose, he glanced at her, then at Jack, who nodded reassuringly.

"I…I have something I want to say," Timothy piped up suddenly.

Rose looked shocked while everyone else smirked, and Tim was vaguely aware that Jack must have told the others what he was planning.

"Rose," Timothy began, turning to face her, one hand discreetly reaching into his pocket "we've known each other for a decade now, and we're the very, _very_ best of friends. We've been dating for four years now, and I think it's safe to say we'll be together forever. You never gave up on me when I was ill, you talked to me and treated me like a normal kid. You're not at all phased by all the headaches and stuff that I have because of the meningitis…I suppose what I'm saying is, I love you so much for all of that, so much that I can't even _begin_ to explain. But I can show you. And I can continue to show you for the rest of our lives. So," Timothy stood quickly before getting down on one knee, pulling the ring box out of his pocket and opening it "Rose Marion Tyler, will you marry me?"

**~StormWolf10~**

"Mum? Dad?" Timothy called as he entered the house, dragging Rose behind him.

"Timothy, shush!" Rose giggled, grinning at him "It's one in the morning!"

However, even as she spoke, the sound of a light being switched on and a door opening could be heard, and soon Rory and Amelia were coming downstairs, both bundled in their dressing gowns.

"Timothy," Amy told her son tiredly "you told us not to wait up. Why are you waking us?"

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," Timothy told them hurriedly, wrapping his arm around Rose's waist and tugging her closer "but I couldn't wait to tell you."

Rory frowned, looking at his nineteen year old son in confusion.

"Earlier tonight," Timothy continued, grinning "we went out for a meal with Donna, Martha, Jack and Sarah Jane, yeah?"

"Yeah…" Rory nodded warily.

"Well, while we were at the meal, I proposed to Rose." Timothy told them, watching his parents carefully.

Amy's eyes widened with delight and she looked over at Rose who was beaming.

"You said yes?" Amy asked the girl.

"I said yes!" Rose agreed, grinning.

Amy squealed, and hurried to hug the girl, laughing. Rory quickly tugged his son in for a hug, grinning before pulling away and patting him on the back.

**~StormWolf10~**

"Your Mum's alright with you staying here tonight?" Timothy asked, watching Rose cross the room in just one of his t-shirts.

Rose nodded, grinning.

"Yeah. It's not like it's the first time I've stayed over. And Rory and Amy are fine with it, so so's she." Rose replied "I didn't tell her about the engagement, though. We'll tell her tomorrow. Together."

Timothy nodded in agreement, holding the covers open for Rose as she slipped into bed. They lay in the darkness together for a while, curled up together in silence. Finally, however, Rose broke the silence.

"How long had you been planning to propose to me?"

"What, do you mean how long I've known I wanted to marry you, or how long since I decided to get the ring?" Timothy asked, looking at her through the gloom.

"Both." Rose replied quietly.

"I decided to get the ring a few months ago," Timothy admitted softly.

"And what about the other question?" Rose prompted.

"How long I've known I wanted to marry you?" Timothy asked.

He felt Rose nod against his chest.

"Always." He replied quietly, a soft smile on his face as he pressed a kiss into her blonde hair "From the moment I woke up in that hospital and realised you hadn't been a dream. That was the moment I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you."


End file.
